Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Planning Appeals and Compulsory Purchase Orders

Mr. Walker-Smith: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the effect of the measures taken to shorten the time for decisions in planning appeals and compulsory purchase orders; and whether he is now satisfied with the position in regard to this matter.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With regard to compulsory purchase orders I think there has been no general difficulty. Their number is, in any case, falling. So far as planning appeals are concerned, about 60 per cent. more cases have been disposed of during the first half of this year than in the corresponding period in 1953; while the average time taken on each case has been slowly falling over the past few months. The number of appeals received is, however, still continuing at a very high level. I am watching the position carefully.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Will the Minister undertake to continue these satisfactory efforts and to give the decisions as speedily as is compatible with full justice to the parties?

Mr. Macmillan: Yes, Sir.

Water Supplies, Anglesey

Mr. C. Hughes: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what steps he is taking to assist the Anglesey County Council to accelerate the progress of the county water scheme, in view of the fact that only 15 per cent. of the farmers in the county have a piped water supply.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The county council were notified on 10th July last that the grant awarded under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Acts, 1944 to 1951, had been increased to £400,000. I shall be glad to give the county council such assistance as I can to complete the scheme if they will tell me what further help they want.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware, apart from what he has said, that the rate burden on the county council still remains crippling and that the figures for purposes connected with piped water supply are still very low? Does he not consider, from the point of view of agriculture and other amenities, that the Anglesey community should have a piped water supply, and can he give further assistance to the county council in this important matter?

Mr. Macmillan: I shall keep all that in mind, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will admit that this is a good decision and a large grant.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

A. V. Roe &amp; Co., Middleton (Agreement)

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the terms of his instructions with regard to the continuation of tenancies of Middleton, Lancashire, council houses, occupied by workers employed by Messrs. A. V. Roe, after such workers had ceased to be employed with that firm.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I have given no such instructions. The management of council houses is vested by statute in the council.

Mr. Hale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we now have a position in which tenants of council houses in Middleton are paying rent to the corporation and a rent to their employers—in some cases their former employers? In those circumstances, has not the time come for the right hon. Gentleman to interfere and find what the facts are?

Mr. Macmillan: I think that arises on a later Question.

Sir J. Barlow: Is the Minister aware that the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich can look after these questions


of local interest without the interference of hon. Members opposite? Secondly, is the Minister aware, or can he tell us, whether this arrangement was made with the knowledge and authority of the Socialist Government?

Mr. Macmillan: I do not want to be drawn into that matter, but negotiations have been going on for a long time.

Mr. Hale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, first, that 7,000 workers of A. V. Roe are largely employed in Oldham, West; secondly, the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow) has not raised his voice in this matter, although I have invited him to do so, over the last 12 months; and, thirdly, he has told me on more than one occasion that he is investigating the matter?

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that a collateral tenancy agreement is insisted upon between Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company and the tenant where council houses are let by the Middleton Council, Lancashire, to the company's employees; that this agreement contains a provision whereby a sum of 3s. 5d. is deducted from the employee's wages each week to reimburse the council for the amount of subsidy borne in the rates; that this is in derogation of the council's responsibilities and freedom of action under the Housing Act; and if he will cause further investigations to be made.

Mr. Wigg: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that 90 municipally-owned houses at Middleton, Lancashire, have been let to Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited on terms that they reimburse to the council the amount of the rate subsidy and provide tenants at the full rent; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. H. Macmillan: No, Sir. If any such agreement exists between the company and its employees, it is not one in which I have any power to intervene.

Mr. Hale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he told me, in answer to Question No. 88 on Thursday last, that he was of opinion that this agreement was illegal, and, if the corporation has

made an agreement which in the opinion of the Minister may be illegal, has not the time come when he should investigate it; and has not the time certainly come when he has ample evidence before him that the statements he made to me in a letter in January last and in a Parliamentary answer on 11th May were not founded on fact?

Mr. Macmillan: I think the hon. Member is confused. Question No. 4 refers to an agreement alleged to exist between Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company and its employees. I have never said that that agreement was illegal, nor was there any reference to me about it. It is not a matter with which I could have any concern. There is an agreement between Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company and the Middleton Town Council. It is on that that I expressed the opinion, on advice, that it was of doubtful legality. They are two quite separate issues.

Mr. Wigg: As my Question refers to the agreement between Messrs. A. V. Roe on the one hand and the corporation on the other hand, and Messrs. Roe's employees, surely the right hon. Gentleman is being a little disingenuous when he says he knows nothing about it?

Mr. Macmillan: No, Sir. I have no power whatever to intervene in the agreement between the company and its employees. If I am not mistaken, the agreement between the borough council and the company is dealt with in a later Question. The two matters are quite separate.

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my Question. He is talking about power to interfere. My Question is whether he knew of this agreement or not?

Mr. Macmillan: No, Sir.

Mr. Hale: The right hon. Gentleman said that he was answering Question No. 29 with my Question. He keeps on saying that that has nothing to do with the agreement, but it expressly refers to the agreement and to nothing else. It may be that by misunderstanding the right hon. Gentleman has answered the wrong Question with mine.

Mr. Macmillan: If I have not misunderstood the point, that may come on a later Question.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman has not only not answered my Question but has made no attempt to answer it. Therefore, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that the Middleton Council, Lancashire, at their last meeting, decided to give notice to a tenant of a council house on the ground that his employment with Messrs. A. V. Roe had been terminated; and, in view of this evidence that the houses in question are tied, if he will reopen his investigation into the principle of these lettings.

Mr. Paget: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many of the 90 houses built by the Middleton Corporation in pursuance of an agreement with Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited are now occupied by workers employed by the company on tenancies tied to their employment.

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is satisfied that the 90 municipally-owned houses at Middleton, Lancashire, the subject of an agreement between the corporation and Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited are not tied houses.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I am aware that the council decided to terminate the tenancy granted to a former employee of Messrs. A. V. Roe Limited, who left his employment voluntarily. They think it would be wrong to allow the man to retain the tenancy now that the special circumstances in which he was given precedence over others for it no longer exist. I am satisfied that what has happened does not make these "tied" lettings since the council and not the company are in control of the houses.

Mr. Hale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the report of the council meeting was to the effect that the council regarded this man as a model tenant but felt bound to turn him out under the "tied" clause in view of the agreement with Messrs. A. V. Roe? Is the Minister further aware that almost everyone in the district—with the exception of the

hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwick (Sir J. Barlow)—is alarmed and excited about this matter? In the circumstances, would he, if he is asked, consider receiving a deputation to go into the whole position which has arisen, in which a pregnant woman is faced with eviction from her home?

Mr. Macmillan: I am always willing to see hon. Members of this House, as they well know, and I shall be happy to meet the hon. Member immediately concerned—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is not interested."]—and other hon. Members who would like to discuss this matter with me.

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government on what grounds he has advised the Middleton Borough Council that their agreement with Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited relating to 90 municipally-owned houses may be illegal.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I informed the council that I was advised that the agreement was of doubtful legality in some respects. However, this is a matter which in the last resort can only be resolved by the courts.

Mr. Davies: I thank the Minister for that reply, but is he aware that, while neither side of the House wishes to discourage new industries in any area, it will be a completely new and dangerous approach to have tied council houses for any industry in Britain? Will he tell us whether there are any other areas in Britain where this sort of thing is happening?

Mr. Macmillan: There has been a very long tradition since the war, under both Administrations, of trying to facilitate the housing of key workers and so forth in special industries. There may be dangers and difficulties involved, but this is the first instance of trouble that has come to my notice. Normally the matter has been amicably arranged. This sort of thing is of importance to industry, and it is equally important that there should be no sense of grievance or unfairness.

Sir J. Barlow: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that similar arrangements have been made in many other places such as Bristol, Liverpool and Bolton and


the Development Areas, and that they have been beneficial to the development of new industries?

Mr. Macmillan: Arrangements on similar lines have been made, but they are not precisely similar under the terms of the contract.

Mr. Wigg: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether the agreement between the Middleton Borough Council and Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited was submitted to his Department before its execution; and on what date his Department first received a copy of this agreement.

Mr. H. Macmillan: No, Sir. The council had no need to submit this agreement to me. It was executed on 2nd March, 1953, and a copy was first sent to my Department on 24th December, 1953.

Mr. Wigg: Can we take it that the right hon. Gentleman has taken no action at all from December last until the present time and that he now admits that the agreement is of doubtful legality?

Mr. Macmillan: I take it to be my duty to respect as far as possible the autonomy of local authorities, and I believe that is the view of most hon. Members. I do not wish to interfere with them so long as they are carrying out their statutory duties. The point might arise, but not at this stage, as to whether they have done so. In that case, it will be the duty of my Department, if necessary, to take some action.

Mr. Wigg: Surely the right hon. Gentleman has a duty to the ordinary citizen as well as to private enterprise? If he now admits that the agreement is of doubtful legality and that that was known to his Department over a year ago, ought he not to have done something about it?

Mr. Macmillan: It is not a question of any arrangement with the private company but of the rather complicated financial arrangements in connection with the housing subsidies.

Requisitioned Houses

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that when requisitioned houses became vacant, some local authorities re-let them to fresh tenants instead

of returning them to their rightful owners; and how long he will allow this practice to continue.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the First Interim Report of the Working Party on Requisitioned Properties in Use for Housing. This recommended that vacated requisitioned property should be released to its owner or used to release other requisitioned accommodation for which the owner's case for release seemed more compelling.

Brigadier Medlicott: Is it not clear that the widespread power to requisition property is a very serious interference with the rights of property owners and should be used only in the event of some pressing and continuing emergency? Could not my right hon. Friend indicate a date by which all these properties may be returned to their rightful owners?

Mr. Macmillan: The power to requisition property is the subject of a later Question on the Order Paper. It has not been used on house property, so far as I know, since the war, except in the very special emergency of the floods last year where we had to use it on one or two occasions. The problem of dealing with a large number of families still living in requisitioned property is a very complex one. We are working hard on it and the local authorities have given us very great support. I hope that we shall be able to clear it up within a reasonable time.

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to requisitioning houses of private persons.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The power to requisition unoccupied dwelling-houses is now exercised only in most exceptional circumstances, the last occasion being that of the floods early in 1953. As the Government have no wish to retain premises on requisition longer than is absolutely necessary, local authorities are under instruction to make the maximum possible reduction in their holdings of requisitioned properties.

Sir W. Smithers: Will the Minister please tell the House whether there is any appeal against requisitioning, and especially if there is an appeal to a traditional


court of law where evidence can be taken on oath and the public and the Press admitted?

Mr. Macmillan: These properties were requisitioned in the war and during the blitz, and we are still faced with a very difficult problem. We still have some 70,000 properties which are mostly round about London and which accommodate a very large number of families. There has been a very substantial fall in the last few years from something like 100,000 to about 70,000.

Sir W. Smithers: But is there any right of appeal?

Mr. Bing: Is not the Minister aware that such authorities as Hornchurch were very glad to take people from the bombed areas of London and accommodate them in requisitioned property; but that such authorities as Hornchurch are very unwilling to turn people out into the street so that the properties may be sold and people make money out of them?

Mr. Macmillan: I think that is rather a tendentious way of putting the question. I prefer to say that I try—and I think that every Government would try—to keep a balance in this very difficult matter, and to meet the claims of both sides.

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will refrain from derequisitioning houses in cases where this would mean rendering the occupants homeless and where urgent cases on local authority housing lists would consequently be deprived of accommodation.

Mr. H. Macmillan: It is important that the requisitioning of houses under emergency powers should end as soon as possible. Local authorities may arrange for the owners of requisitioned houses to accept the present licensees as tenants, or buy or lease the houses.

Mr. Sparks: Is the Minister aware that if he submits to the pressure of the hon. Gentlemen behind him it will mean that thousands of families will be put out on the streets, especially in London and our great cities? Therefore, to assist local authorities to purchase these dwellings where suitable, will he agree to extend the principle of subsidy to them to enable them to undertake the work?

Mr. Macmillan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We are considering all this in its wide aspects, and I hope to be able to make some proposals about it.

Rents

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that some landlords are asking for increased rents from their tenants in anticipation of the operation of the Housing Repairs and Rents Bill; and what action he proposes to take to protect tenants.

Mr. H. Macmillan: If the hon. Member will send me details of the cases. I will look into them. Tenants are already fully protected under the Rent Restrictions Acts against payments of rent in excess of that which is legally recoverable.

Mr. Jeger: May I thank the Minister for offering to look into specific cases? May I ask him if he is aware that in poor working-class areas many tenants are receiving demands for increased rents and that they are not aware of their rights? Would not it be advisable for him to consider making a broadcast on the matter so that everybody will know what are their rights and what are the duties of landlords?

Mr. Macmillan: I am grateful for the suggestion. I think that the Question and answer today have helped. As soon as the Royal Assent is given to the Bill, which I think will be in a very few days, I propose to see that widespread information is put about as to the rights of tenants and landlords. If I can have permission, I should perhaps consider making a broadcast.

Mr. H. Morrison: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, who was looking specifically at me. I would only ask, if he makes a broadcast, that it should be very factual and not politically tendentious, as was the propaganda pamphlet on this Bill which was paid for by the taxpayers.

Mr. Macmillan: I will leave the right hon. Gentleman to settle that with his hon. Friend.

Annual Housing Programme

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government from what date he has decided that


the annual maximum of 300,000 houses shall not be exceeded; and what steps he has taken to ensure that this maximum shall not be exceeded.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The total number of houses completed in any year depends partly or prior planning and partly on sufficient labour and materials being available. In addition, resources vary from region to region. While I have, therefore, had to take some steps to see that the programme does not get out of step, I do not attempt to control it within precise figures. I am hopeful that, with improving production, the total for this year will be at least as large as last year, and I am equally optimistic about 1955.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister aware that his policy already denies to active housing authorities like the Lambeth Borough Council the same completion rate in 1955 as in the two previous years? Should not the right hon. Gentleman in those circumstances be a little more honest and admit that his so-called limit to expansion is really a cut in the housing programme, so far as the more active housing authorities are concerned, which is not being imposed on private builders?

Mr. Macmillan: I do not think that we are doing too badly on housing. I think that it ought to run to something between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent. above the last Socialist Government's figures.

Mr. H. Morrison: Is it not the case that the decision of the Conservative Party conference, under which the Government are acting—because the conference gave them their instructions—was that there should be a minimum of 300,000 houses a year? Is it not the case that, in a letter which his Department sent to the Lambeth Borough Council, it was pointed out that the Government were in danger of going substantially over the 300,000 figure, and that therefore the enterprise of the Lambeth Borough Council must be checked'? Why is the right hon. Gentleman stopping the Lambeth Borough Council from building houses, when they are willing, able and competent to do it?

Mr. Macmillan: They are building six times as many houses as they built under the previous Administration.

Mr. Morrison: I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that that has nothing to do with the point. Inevitably and properly the post-war housing programme would develop as it went along. Is it not the case—apart from his party political stuff—that the right hon. Gentleman has stopped the Lambeth Borough Council from building the houses which it is competent and able efficiently to build; and is it the case that the Government are determined that the housing programme shall not materially exceed the figure of 300,000?

Mr. Macmillan: I do not know about the post-war programme. The trouble was that the numbers fell from 240,000 houses in 1947 down to under 200,000. It went backwards—

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: What about Lambeth?

Mr. Macmillan: —and our programme has gone forward. As for Lambeth. I have to keep regionally to some reasonable plan by which we shall be able to proceed without having the kind of follies which we had under the former Administration, where far more houses were planned and started than could be finished.

Neglected Properties (Owners)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware of the continued and growing practice of certain landlords in allowing their properties to deteriorate into slums, refusing to carry out repairs under statutory and sanitary orders, and failing to leave a forwarding address whereby they can be traced for action to be taken against them; that this has created difficulties in Stanley, Livingstone and Biggerstaffe Roads, Stratford, E.15; and what action he proposes to take to compel these landlords to meet their statutory duties.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The statutory powers for enabling local authorities to deal with unfit property belonging to an untraceable owner have been strengthened in the Housing Repairs and Rents Bill. I am informed, however, that this difficulty does not arise in the areas mentioned by the hon. Member.

Mr. Lewis: I appreciate that the powers have been strengthened, or that they will be, but does not the Minister


agree that that means that local authorities will have to take over at great local rate expense these neglected houses which the landlords have literally sucked dry? Does the Minister think that it is right and proper that those landlords who have made huge fortunes should be allowed to get away with it while the local authorities have to pay?

Mr. Macmillan: That was not the Question I was asked. The Question was about landlords who cannot be traced. I know that the hon. Member is interested in the other matter. We discussed it in Committee on the Bill. What we have done in the Bill is to take additional powers to deal with the problem raised in the Question.

Subsidies

Mr. D. Jones: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that the rent of a £1,500 council house will have to be raised by some 1s. 2d. per week to cover the deficit which will arise in the housing revenue account when the proposed reduction in the rate of subsidy takes place as and from 1st April next; and what action he proposes to take to see that the local authority housing revenue is in balance.

Mr. H. Macmillan: No, Sir. I cannot accept the hon. Member's assumptions.

Mr. Jones: Why is the right hon. Gentleman so coy about giving a direct answer? Is he aware that it is estimated that when the reduced subsidies come into operation on 1st April next there will be a deficit of 1s. 2d. per week per house on all houses which cost £1,500 built after that date, and that unless he does something about it the rents will have to be increased by that figure?

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman talks about reduced subsidies. As soon as the Bank rate was put up the subsidies were put up. It does not seem to be unreasonable that when the Bank rate fell there should be some reduction in subsidy.

Mr. Jones: Will the Minister agree that the new subsidy rates will in fact reduce the income by 2s. 4d. per house per week whereas the reduced rate of interest will make up only 1s. 2d., the balance having to be met by an increase in rent?

Mr. Macmillan: The rent will depend upon the circumstances of each local authority, the cost of building, which varies, and the rent or rate policy which the local authority adopts.

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what is now the value of the notional house upon which his standard of subsidy is based: and since what date such value has been accepted for this purpose.

Mr. H. Macmillan: One thousand five hundred and eighty-three pounds was taken as the latest available figure for the notional house when the local authority associations were consulted on 21st June.

Regional Organisations

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government to give an assurance that he will not abolish the present regional organisations for housing and planning.

Mr. H. Macmillan: Proposals for the gradual closing of these regional offices over a period are at present under consideration.

Mr. Sparks: Does the Minister know that last week his Parliamentary Secretary said that he had not decided one way or the other on this matter? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if he closes these regional organisations it will create great hardship especially for the small local authorities?

Mr. Macmillan: That is why I said that the matter was under consideration.

Mr. Vane: May I ask my right hon. Friend not to be deflected from his policy of closing regional organisations where-ever he can?

Hornchurch

Mr. Bing: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government why his Department has limited the building programme of the Hornchurch Urban Disttrict Council to 124 houses during the present housing year.

Mr. H. Macmillan: This council has always been hampered by shortage of developed sites. This difficulty is now being partially overcome. They were given authority for an additional 74 houses and flats on 5th July.

Mr. Bing: Is not the Minister aware that when there was a Labour administration, as there is now again, in Horn-church, no fewer than 500 to 600 houses for letting were built every year, and that the council is prepared to put up that number, that sites are fully developed with roads for this purpose, and that his Department obstinately refuses to grant them any licence while 600 to 700 private houses are in the course of erection?

Mr. Macmillan: I understand that the difficulty was that of obtaining developed sites.

Mr. Bing: If I can show the Minister that developed sites are available, will he receive a deputation from the council which will bring plans and show him exactly where sewers and roads have already been laid?

Mr. Macmillan: I should be happy to receive a deputation whether it can show me that or not.

Mr. H. Morrison: Can the right hon. Gentleman answer the important point made by my hon. and learned Friend? Private enterprise has been given its head to an ex tent that the local authority has not. Will he say why he is specially favouring private enterprise and here, as with Lambeth, bringing his hand down and cutting the local authority?

Mr. Macmillan: The circumstances vary in each locality. I can only remind the right hon. Gentleman that both houses to let and houses for private occupation are much larger in number now than they have ever been under his Administration.

Mr. Bing: Surely the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell the House in truth that this is the smallest allocation of houses ever allowed to the Hornchurch Urban District Council, and that they have built far more houses than this in any year except the last year when he himself said that: the Conservative Administration were prevented by purely local considerations from building more?

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. and learned Gentleman had better give this information to the deputation.

Mr. Bing: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether, in view of the limitation of licences for new building imposed by him on the

Hornchurch Urban District Council, he will reconsider his decision to require the council to return all requisitioned property by the end of October.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I have allowed the council until the end of next January to terminate the requisitions they hold. They have assured me that they should be able to do this.

Mr. Bing: Will the right hon. Gentleman say, first, whether it was the old Conservative council or the new Labour one that told him this? Secondly, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that every one of the houses he has licensed them to build would not be enough to house the people who would be turned out of the derequisitioned houses, let alone to house any of the 2,000 or so families on the housing list?

Mr. Macmillan: My information is that there are about 90 families in requisitioned properties.

Building Standards, Blackburn

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government why he has refused to confirm a building byelaw of the Blackburn Borough Council laying down a minimum ceiling height of eight feet for habitable rooms, in view of the smoke-laden humid atmosphere and low sunshine record in the town.

Mr. H. Macmillan: Health in living rooms depends not on ceiling heights alone but also on adequate ventilation, floor area and window space. Even considering the conditions in Blackburn, I do not think it necessary to insist on a minimum height greater than the seven feet six inches, which is now almost universally applicable.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that a minimum of eight feet has been in operation in Blackburn since 1934 and that the council strongly protests against this reduction of building standards, especially as the right hon. Gentleman announced on 13th April a concession for three other Lancashire councils, including Wigan and Farnworth, whose climatic conditions do not differ in any way from those at Blackburn?

Mr. Macmillan: If that shows anything, it shows the danger of making concessions.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that the Blackburn Borough Council will


greatly deplore that frivolous reply and that they asked him to allow them to stand by the building standards which have been in operation in the area for many years? Will he reconsider the position in view of the low sunshine record and the humidity in the area?

Mr. Macmillan: This is contrary to the technical advice which I have received from the London School of Hygiene and other people whom I have consulted. I have made one or two concessions, but they were exceptional.

Mrs. Castle: In view of the unsatisfactory and frivolous nature of the reply, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTHEND WATERWORKS COMPANY

Mr. Braine: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will make a statement on his negotiations with the Southend Waterworks Company.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I have asked for the company's views on the application of the water code of the 1945 Act to their undertaking. I would not expect them to come to a decision without time for consideration, and I think that it is too soon to make any statement on the negotiations.

Mr. Braine: In view of the widespread feeling that the company's recent raising of assessments in country districts operates unfairly between one district and another, would my right hon. Friend consider, on behalf of my own supporters and those of the party opposite, asking the company not to exercise its powers under the 1921 Act pending a settlement?

Mr. Macmillan: This matter is rather complicated. The provisions of the Third Schedule cover many more points than the one raised by my hon. Friend. He had better discuss the matter with me and we shall see what we can do.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF WORKS

Atomic Research (Commercial Exploitation)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister of Works if the paper which was given

by Dr. A. Charlesby, of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, on the cross-linking of polythene by pile radiation, and on the effect of high-energy radiation on long-chain polymers, was delivered with his approval; on what terms a licence was granted to the General Electric Corporation of America for the manufacturing rights in this project; who will get the income which is the result of Harwell research: and how many applications have been made by or on behalf of German concerns to benefit from this British research.

The Minister of Works (Sir David Eccles): Yes, Sir; publication of these papers was approved by the responsible authorities. No licence for manufacturing rights has been granted and no application has been received in this connection from any foreign firm. From 1st August, the Atomic Energy Authority will receive any income derived from commercial exploitation of the invention.

Mr. Edelman: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the procedure by which processes developed originally by Harwell are made available to private firms?

Sir D. Eccles: When an invention is thought worthy of patenting, an application is lodged for the patent and the information is distributed, and those who wish to take advantage of the invention can do so by paying a royalty to Harwell.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman's original answer mean that no concern in this country which has benefited from the research carried out at Harwell is collaborating in any way with any other company in Germany, Japan or America?

Sir D. Eccles: I am not sure that I can answer that question without notice. A firm in this country is collaborating with Harwell on this invention, and one of its scientists is working there now.

Electricity (Nuclear Energy Generation)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister of Works if he has now concluded a satisfactory arrangement with the manufacturers of atomically driven electric plant, with a view to ensuring that this


country remains in the forefront of world development, that new ideas are immediately applied and that the needs of customers are met.

Sir D. Eccles: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power on 28th June.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Things have moved a little in this respect since then. Is the right hon. Gentleman now satisfied that this country will not be left behind in this development as it has been in hydro-electrification? Can he give an assurance that the closest possible co-operation exists between the Ministries and the concerns responsible for manufacturing this kind of plant?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. Discussions are continually taking place with both the British Electricity Authority and the manufacturers of this type of plant. We believe that we are ahead of other countries.

Mr. Nabarro: Did not the Minister of Fuel and Power recently announce that a special department of the British Electricity Authority was being established to deal with the application of nucleonics to the generation of electric power, and is not that adequate in all the circumstances?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Harold Davies: Are we at present negotiating, like the Americans are, with Canadian uranium interests? Is there any possibility of keeping the basic price of uranium round about 7·2 dollars per lb.? The present price is about 11·5 dollars. Can the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that there will be control of the uranium ore in the interests of productivity for the people?

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is connected with the previous Question.

Mr. Davies: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, is not my question not only connected with the previous Question but also very relevant to the Question which has just been answered?

Mr. Speaker: It is very difficult to understand.

Mr. Davies: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the subject on the Adjournment at the first opportunity.

Uranium Ore and Cobalt Supplies

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister of Works if he will make a statement on our present position for the supply of uranium ore and cobalt under the 1940 Anglo-Belgian-United States Agreement; and if he is satisfied that this country will have the required supply of uranium, cobalt, etc., to enable us to keep pace with developments and manufacturing needs.

Sir D. Eccles: I would refer the hon. Member to the replies I gave to the hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) on 16th March last. The agreement does not cover the supply of cobalt. I am informed by the Minister of Materials that supplies of cobalt are adequate.

Adastral House (Requisitioning)

Mr. R. Bell: asked the Minister of Works when his Department proposes to release Adastral House from requisition.

Sir D. Eccles: I expect to release Adastral House by 30th June, 1955. If I can do so earlier, I will.

Mr. Bell: Does my right hon. Friend realise that any uncertainty about the date of release, added to the shortness of the proposed notice, makes it very difficult to relet a vast building like this, which has been in Air Ministry occupation for 35 years and was requisitioned only in 1946 when the lease ran out?

Sir D. Eccles: I am advised that the notice of almost a year is adequate for the purpose of successfully negotiating about the future of the building.

Tower of London (School Parties)

Mr. Keenan: asked the Minister of Works (1) what arrangements or regulations are made by his Department to control the admission to the Tower of London of parties of school children from the provinces, when organised from the schools: and
(2) under what conditions parties of school children are admitted, without charge, to visit the Tower of London; and what facilities there are to encourage the visit of school children from the provinces.

Sir D. Eccles: By agreement with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, my Department allows free admission for up to 500 school children a day coming in organised parties from any part of the country, provided not more than 100 children are from the same school. Applications must be made in advance, and are granted automatically until the daily quota is full. My right hon. Friend has no reason to think that these arrangements are not generally known.

Mr. Keenan: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that there are only 500 free places available for school children visiting the Tower, which is now very popular with children in the provinces? Will he at least ensure that those in the provinces get their share of the 500 free places, because I am not satisfied that they do, and would he have a look at the question of increasing the number, now that the Tower has become so popular?

Sir D. Eccles: More than a million people pay for admission to the Tower every year, and it is becoming overcrowded. The more free places we grant, the more we disappoint some of those who come and are willing to pay. It is a very difficult question, because the Tower has become so popular.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that, while there are one million visitors a year to the Tower, he is allowing only 500 free places a day for school children, and will he increase the number of parties of school children to be admitted free, not only in the case of London schools, but those in the provinces also?

Sir D. Eccles: I will do my best to see that the provinces get their share, but it is very unfair to visitors, particularly those from overseas, who come to the Tower ready to pay for admission and find they cannot be admitted. It is now a very severe problem, because, when they have got inside the Tower, they also wish to see the Crown Jewels, and we can only get 3,000 people a day through the Jewel House. If I were to cut the

number of these visitors down by increasing the free places, there would be much distress among those who come specially to see the Jewels.

Requisitioned Properties

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of Works how many properties are still held under requisition by his Department; if he will order a new investigation into the circumstances of each case; and if he will direct that prior consideration be given to the original owner, or owners, whenever a sale is contemplated.

Sir D. Eccles: Some 1,350 properties are held under requisition by my Department under Defence Regulation 51. Continued efforts are being made to end these requisitions. Ownership is not affected by requisition, and no question of sale arises.

Mr. Gower: In view of the fact that it is now nearly 10 years since the end of the war, will my right hon. Friend look into this matter again?

Sir D. Eccles: I am giving constant personal attention to this matter. There were 1,700 properties under requisition last September; we have now got the figure down to 1,350, and I hope that by the end of the year it will be down to 800.

Brick Supplies, Hornchurch

Mr. Bing: asked the Minister of Works whether he is aware that the Hornchurch Urban District Council, together with contractors to the council, have orders for 2 million bricks outstanding for 18 months; that neither the council nor the contractors thereto can obtain delivery; and whether, in these circumstances, he will take steps to see that adequate supplies of bricks are provided for Hornchurch housing.

Sir D. Eccles: This appears to be an unusual case where special difficulties have held up deliveries. I am expecting further information and will communicate with the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. Bing: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Hornchurch housing programme, now administered by his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, is completely held up by a failure to deliver bricks,


and cannot he at least give some assurance to the House that some steps will be taken, and as soon as possible, to secure a supply of bricks being made available to the contractors, because they are being supplied to private builders?

Sir D. Eccles: This is the only instance this year in the whole of the Eastern Region of a shortage of bricks being reported to my Department. As far as I understand the position, the council and the brickmaking firm got into some disagreement, but a meeting was held yesterday between the two sides, and I hope the matter is now settled.

Carlton House Terrace

Mr. Grimond: asked the Minister of Works when the reconstruction of Carlton House Terrace will start.

Sir D. Eccles: No decision has been reached. The matter will be reviewed later in the year.

Mr. Grimond: Can the Minister say whether plans have now been finally approved, and, if so, whether it is simply a matter of the expenditure that is holding it up? If not, what are the reasons for the delay?

Sir D. Eccles: Plans are about 50 per cent. completed. Certainly it is a question of finance as to when any building can start.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL PARKS

Litter

Sir E. Boyle: asked the Minister of Works if he is yet in a position to announce the date on which the Committee on litter in the Royal Parks will present its report; and if he will make a statement.

Sir D. Eccles: In three months the Committee on litter has secured a marked improvement in St. James's Park and in the Green Park. Further experiments will be made at the August Bank Holiday and a new design for litter-baskets is being tried out. In all their work, the Committee has received much ingenious help from the Press. I do not expect their report until the autumn, but in the

meantime the Committee and the public deserve to be congratulated on the reduction in litter which has been achieved.

Horses (Replacement)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Works why it is proposed to dispense with the services of one black gelding and two bay mares which have been employed in the Royal Parks for the disposal of rubbish; and, in view of the fact that there is a possibility that they will be slaughtered, whether he will reconsider his decision.

Sir D. Eccles: The time must come when horses, like hon. Members, retire from service. These three animals belonged to a contractor who collected leaves and litter in the Parks. Their place will be taken by one motor lorry at a saving of £1,200 a year, and I understand they are going to a comfortable home.

Mr. Freeman: Is it not the case that the lives of these three horses, who have served the community for over 30 years, will now be saved? If publicity had not been given to the matter and an offer received from one of the animal welfare societies, might not the horses already have found their way to the knacker's yard; or might not portions of them have been served to the right hon. Gentleman for his dinner?

Sir D. Eccles: I am very thankful that offers have been made to give the horses a comfortable home. I have no reason to believe that the contractor would have done other than find homes for them.

Car Parking

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Minister of Works if his attention has been drawn to the increasing numbers of motor cars parked each day in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and other Royal Parks; and if he will take steps to discourage this practice.

Sir D. Eccles: I am disturbed by the increasing numbers of cars which are being parked in the Royal Parks, other/than Kensington Gardens, where vehicles are prohibited. I am reviewing the problem in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and the police.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY (RE-ARMAMENT)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Prime Minister what communication he has received from the French Prime Minister regarding the joint Anglo-United States statement on West German sovereignty.

The Prime Minister (Sir Winston Churchill): No communication has been received from the French Prime Minister. In public, however, Monsieur Mendès-France has indicated his satisfaction, and stated that the French Government would be greatly helped in their consideration of the E.D.C. problem by this re-statement of their allies' views.

Mr. Warbey: In view of the successful demonstration at the Geneva Conference of Anglo-French unity on a policy of peaceful negotiation with the Communist countries, will the Prime Minister now propose to M. Mendès-France the holding of a new four-Power meeting on Germany before any irrevocable step is taken towards German sovereignty and rearmament?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member takes a surprising view of the way in which the process of Government is conducted if he supposes that I could give an answer to a question like that on the spur of the moment.

Mr. Warbey: asked the Prime Minister the detailed proposals of the Government for bringing the Bonn Convention into force separately from the European Defence Community Treaty while deferring the rearmament of Germany.

The Prime Minister: In my speech in the Foreign Affairs debate on the 14th July, I explained the general approach of Her Majesty's Government to this problem, should it arise. It would be premature to go into the matter in greater detail unless and until it does arise.

Mr. Warbey: As the Bonn Convention leaves the door wide open for the creation of German national armed forces, without limit or control, and as Mr. Dulles has stated that M. MendèsFrance has been given only until the 15th August to ratify the E.D.C. Treaty, by which time this House will be in Recess, is it not important that this House should

be fully acquainted with the detailed proposals of H.M. Government before we rise for the Summer Recess?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid I cannot add to the answer which I have already given.

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that before Her Majesty's Government reaches agreement with other interested powers on the question of the accession of German sovereignty, Parliament will have an opportunity of debating any proposed agreement, and that, in the event of the House of Commons being on Summer Recess when these proposed agreements are made, he will take steps for the recall of Parliament so that this may be debated.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member can rest assured that Her Majesty's Government will act with propriety as circumstances require.

Mr. Lewis: That is not the usual forthcoming answer that we expect from the Prime Minister. If the Leader of the Official Opposition—[Laughter.] Mr. Speaker. I was going on to ask for an assurance when I was rudely interrupted by the shouting of hon. Gentlemen on the Government Benches, and I would therefore repeat my question. Can we have an assurance that if an approach is made by the Leader of the Official Opposition—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] Yes, or the Leader of the Liberal opposition, or the Tory opposition of the 1922 Committee—the Prime Minister will give favourable consideration with a view to recalling Parliament?

The Prime Minister: We shall be guided by precedents in this matter, although it may be a little difficult to see how things stand, in view of some of the suggestions made by the hon. Member about conditions prevailing on the Opposition side of the House.

Mr. Warbey: Does the Prime Minister realise that this is an extremely serious matter, and that there will be profound opposition to any opening of the door to unlimited German re-armament? Is he also aware that it is no way to treat this House to suggest that this matter should be settled in the absence of hon.


Members? Will he not look at the matter again, and perhaps undertake to tell us next week what his intentions are?

The Prime Minister: I do not think there is any need for further definition. The precedents are well known and can be studied. Naturally, any request by the Leader of the Opposition—I had not appreciated the distinction, as I thought that the right hon. Member for Waltham-stow, West (Mr. Attlee) on the Front Bench opposite was the Leader of the Opposition; at any rate he is, for all purposes, connected with the usual channels, and any representation made by him will receive most careful consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC AGENCY

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the progress of discussions on President Eisenhower's proposal to establish an international atomic agency.

Mr. D. Healey: asked the Prime Minister what proposals he made to President Eisenhower, in Washington, about further action to establish an international atomic pool, in the light of the Soviet Government's refusal to continue discussions on the original United States proposal

The Prime Minister: In discussion with President Eisenhower, we noted with disappointment that the Russians had not agreed to join in the scheme which the President had proposed for international development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy. We agreed, however, that the invitation to the Russians should be left open. Meanwhile consideration would be given to the question of putting the President's plan into effect, even without Soviet participation.

Mr. Henderson: In view of the fact that the President made his proposals more than eight months ago, cannot the Prime Minister give an indication when it is likely that an announcement will be made establishing the agency?

The Prime Minister: I think what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said shows very clearly why I am not able to give any precise indication.

Oral Answers to Questions — TROOPS, KOREA (RETENTION)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Prime Minister how far he intends to retain the members of our Forces in Korea until a political settlement is reached.

The Prime Minister: The time has not yet come to take a decision about the strength of the United Nations forces which must be retained in Korea in the immediate future.

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, but as a political settlement will take a very considerable time to effect, and as the Prime Minister has apparently set his heart on creating a substantial strategic reserve in the United Kingdom, is it not desirable that we should proceed now to bring some of our troops home?

The Prime Minister: I really have nothing to add to the statement I have made.

Mr. Shinwell: What does all this mean? Why is the right hon. Gentleman saying in reply to all supplementary questions "I have nothing to add," instead of giving a direct reply to a simple question? Does it mean that he is evading the questions? Does he not wish to reply? Is he entitled to treat the House and hon. Members in this way?

The Prime Minister: I could not give a more direct reply to the Question of the right hon. Gentleman than that which I have given. He asked me:
how far he intends to retain the members of our Forces in Korea until a political settlement is reached.
I replied that the time had not yet come to take a decision about that point.

Mr. Shinwell: Is not that a very unsatisfactory reply?

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE EXPENDITURE

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now make a statement on the review promised by the Government on defence expenditure; and how far any reduction can be expected in the current year.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. Not yet.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman be a little more forthcoming?


In view of the fact that earlier in the yeas, or I believe at the end of last year, both he and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised emphatically to the House that the Government were reviewing defence expenditure and hoped to effect a reduction at an early date, what is being done about it?

The Prime Minister: Unending studies have been made in this subject. The Estimates are usually decided in November of each year, but as early as May, if not April, we began special Departmental and inter-Departmental inquiries in order that the whole field should be surveyed. That process is still going on and considerable progress has been made in a general presentation of the case. The decisions which have been taken upon it will be made known to Parliament at the usual time.

Mr. Shinwell: Very well. In view of the progress which the right hon. Gentleman says has been made, can he reply to the second part of my Question? Does he expect to effect a reduction in the current year?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, not unless some unexpectedly favourable event should occur. The process of effecting frugal economies in the whole conduct of the Services is steadily going forward.

Mr. de Freitas: Is the Prime Minister aware that it costs £25,000 to train a bomber pilot? Will he look at this calculation and see whether it is not much too generous?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not expect me to do more in regard to that question than to see that it is transmitted, with the HANSARD, to the appropriate Department.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION (ECONOMY)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Prime Minister what action he intends to take to improve the efficiency and economy of Government administration.

The Prime Minister: This is not the sort of subject which can be dealt with in the limits of Question time.

Mr. Grimond: I thank the Prime Minister for that very clear and concise reply. Is he aware that at the time of the Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that an inquiry was being made into Government expenditure? Will a statement be made before we rise as to the progress of this review and what the results are likely to be?

The Prime Minister: I am not aware that there was any intention to make an interim statement of this character before the House rises.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Heavy Goods Vehicles (Speed Limit)

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Labour how the information about the nature of the objections of the trade unions to the raising of the heavy goods speed limit was obtained in view of the fact that there have been no formal consultations between his Department and trade union officials on this subject: and whether he will now take steps to ascertain what precisely is the nature of these objections so that when the time is opportune to promote agreement between employers' and employees' organisations about this matter there will be no delay through lack of information.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I would refer my hon. Friend to my answer on the same subject on 22nd June, when I said there had been no formal consultations recently. Formal consultations did, however, take place at an earlier stage between the unions concerned, and the then Ministers of Transport and Labour and National Service. As a result of those consultations, and more recent informal contacts, I am satisfied that there is no lack of information as to the views of the trade unions on this matter.

Mr. Nabarro: Notwithstanding what the hon. Gentleman has said, can the Minister say whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to re-open these important discussions, as it is solely a question of raising production in the heavy vehicle industry?

Mr. Watkinson: To the Ministry of Labour, the question of timing is usually


everything, and it is the view of my right hon. and learned Friend that the time is not appropriate for any further consultation.

Mr. Harrison: In view of the increasing density of traffic on the roads, does not the Minister agree that to increase the speed of heavy goods lorries increases the danger that we experience every day on our arterial roads?

Mr. Watkinson: That is quite another question.

Sir H. Williams: Is my hon. Friend aware that goods-lorry drivers often go at 30 to 40 miles on hour, and then go and have a sleep in a lay-by road?

Mr. Watkinson: That has nothing to do with the Question.

Northern Ireland

Mr. Robens: asked the Minister of Labour what proposals he has to relieve the unemployment in Northern Ireland.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Sir Walter Monckton): During a recent visit to Belfast, I took the opportunity of discussing with Members of Her Majesty's Government in Northern Ireland, the unemployment situation there. I have reported these talks to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is responsible for relations with Northern Ireland. He is arranging for further consideration to be given to this problem, and a meeting of Ministers is to take place this week.

Mr. Robens: While thanking the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him to say something about the position at Short Brothers where there is now the problem of the dispersal of a very greatly skilled labour force, and whether or not his right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply could not put into that factory some other type of aircraft production in order to keep that skilled labour-force together?

Sir W. Monckton: That is one of the problems which we shall be discussing. I have already communicated with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply, but I have to remember that this is really a matter for Her Majesty's Government in Northern Ireland. While we are very ready to co-operate, I cannot act without them.

Mr. McKibbin: While welcoming the new-found interest of hon. Members opposite in the question of unemployment in Northern Ireland, may I ask the Minister whether he will continue to keep in touch with hon. Members on this side of the House, and with the Government of Northern Ireland who are making every effort with regard to this serious problem with very considerable success?

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS (NEWS LEAKAGES)

The Prime Minister: I will, with permission, Mr. Speaker, make a statement.
The right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) asked me on 15th July to inquire into the publication in the London evening papers, in advance of the statement which I made to the House on that day about the Ministry of Materials, of reports that a decision had been made to wind up the Ministry and transfer its functions to the Board of Trade. The facts appear to be as follows.
On the morning of 15th July, "The Times" newspaper published on its main news page the following report:
With the progressive removal of controls and restoration of private trading the functions of the Ministry of Materials have been diminished to a point at which the Ministry's continuance as a separate Department can soon be ended. It is believed that a Government announcement to this effect is imminent. The remaining responsibilities of the Ministry of Materials will probably be transferred to the Board of Trade. The stocks of raw materials in the hands of the Ministry are being rapidly liquidated and during the past two years and a half the staff has been reduced by more than half. The Minister of Materials is Lord Woolton, who combines this office with that of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
This statement was no doubt founded on the general information which newspapers collect in the diligent pursuit of their business; and I am not aware of its source. The interest of the evening newspapers was naturally aroused; but the only information which was given to inquirers was that the Prime Minister would be making an announcement on the subject in the House of Commons that afternoon. As comparison with the OFFICIAL REPORT shows, the reports which appeared in the early afternoon editions did not contain any of the material included in my statement made


at the end of Questions, apart from the deduction that the Ministry of Materials was now to be wound up.

Mr. H. Morrison: The House will be obliged to the Prime Minister for his statement. I gathered from his earlier answer that he would make inquiries with a view to finding out whether there was a leakage from Ministerial quarters, and I would like to know whether such inquiries were made, whether the result was negative, or whether anything came out of them. While making it clear, as I did before, that I am not attacking the journalists, whose business it is to get news—and one cannot blame them if they get it; and it is interesting that in this case the most successful, progressive and lively of the lot was "The Times," for whose political correspondent those of us who know him on both sides of the House have a high regard—may I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that he accepts the view that it somewhat lowers the dignity of the House of Commons, and, in a way, makes fools of us, if before the Prime Minister or other Ministers make a statement to the House that statement appears in substance in the Press, as it did on this occasion?

The Prime Minister: It is quite untrue to say that it appeared in substance in the Press. Hardly a word of my statement appeared in any of the newspapers before I made it. I have been given a bundle of instances of leakages, lamentable leakages, admitted leakages. and, sometimes, intentional leakages, which occurred during the lifetime of the Labour Government, notably in regard to the impending formation of the Ministry of Materials which was published exclusively in the "Daily Mail" before any information had been given to Parliament. Indeed, the report also gave the name of the Minister, the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), who had been chosen to take charge of the new Department of State, even though Parliament had not yet been invited to pass the necessary legislation, and the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) was unable, despite the most diligent inquiries, to discover the source from which this information came.
There have, of course, been Questions asked about news published in newspapers when the late Government were

in power. For instance, in 1945 the news that the hospitals under the National Health Service were to be handed over to regional boards was given exclusively to the "Daily Mirror," but the Minister, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), stated that he had been unable to discover the source of the leak. I could go on almost indefinitely.

Mr. Morrison: This is a very sad case of the Prime Minister anticipating an aggressive attack from me on this occasion which he did not receive. On the contrary, he received a most courteous inquiry, but he was so primed with the ammunition in his hand that instead of doing what I would have done, giving a polite answer back, he must deliver himself of this ammunition. Cannot the Prime Minister return to the point and accept the view—as I am sure that I did on the occasion which he quotes—that it is unfortunate and lamentable that when a statement is to be made to the House of Commons it should first appear in the Press? Will the Prime Minister assure the House that, within the limits of his capacity—and no one knows the difficulties of these matters more than I do—he will do all he can to prevent it? May I express the hope that the Prime Minister feels better now that he has shot off his ammunition?

The Prime Minister: I am certainly glad to feel that the ammunition was not wasted. It is quite untrue to say—and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will not persist in saying it—that my statement appeared in any form in any of the newspapers. Nothing in the statement which I made was reproduced in the speculative statements which appeared in the earlier editions of the newspapers—nothing—and the right hon. Gentleman has no right to go on asserting that statement when he has had quite definite proof that it is not in accordance with the facts.

Mr. Lewis: As I originally raised this matter last week and asked you, Mr. Speaker, to be good enough to give the Prime Minister an opportunity of having an investigation made, and as the Prime Minister said that he would have investigations made, in reply to my right hon. Friend, is it not customary that the hon. Member who originally raised an issue is


given, subject to your approval, the opportunity to ask a supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker: I think that every case must be taken on its merits, but the question of the hon. Member was taken over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Isle of Man (Customs) Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

CRICHEL DOWN

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.]

3.41 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries (Sir Thomas Dugdale): Today the House will discuss the issues arising out of Sir Andrew Clark's Report on the public inquiry into the disposal of land at Crichel Down. I am thankful that this day has come. First, I think that it might be helpful if I gave the House my own review of the course of events affecting this land. I will then turn to certain general issues of policy that arise out of this particular case.
By way of background, may I remind the House that the Air Ministry purchased this area of 725 acres of chalk down-land before the war for use as a bombing range. The land was not requisitioned. It was bought outright from three owners: 328 acres were bought from the late Lord Alington's Crichel Estate; 382 acres were bought from Mr. Farquharson's Langton Estate, and the remaining 15 acres from the late Mr. Hooper's farm. The three owners were paid £8,346 for the value of their land. Over and above that, Lord Alington and Mr. Farquharson received £3,760 for injurious affection arising from the severance of the land from the farms of which it had previously formed part.
When in 1950 the Air Ministry no longer required the land, the Ministry of Agriculture took it over for agricultural use. My predecessor, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams)—whom I see in his place opposite—in 1950 placed it under the management of the Agricultural Land Commission, the members of which are independent persons and not officials. I would ask the House to take note of that. It was the Commission's statutory responsibility to decide what would be the best method of managing the land in the future. It had to consider whether it would be better to let it off as bare land to the neighbouring farms—that is, those farms of which it had originally formed part—or to keep it as a compact block, and equip it as one farm, that is, as a self-contained unit.
This is the kind of problem which the Land Commission has to consider, and clearly the main considerations which it must have in mind are, first, what would be likely to result in the most productive use of the land, and secondly, whether the expenditure involved could be justified. In this case the Commission, in the exercise of its statutory function, decided that the right course, from the agricultural standpoint, was to equip the land as one farm. This was in no way a reflection on the farming abilities of the neighbouring farmers, nor indeed on their capacity for dealing with the land had it been let to them.
The plain fact was that the Commission at that time came to the conclusion that, however good the neighbouring farmers were, and whatever equipment they had on their land, this area of 725 acres was likely to be more productive as one farm with a resident farmer than if farmed as the outlying land of neighbouring farms. Clearly this decision must be a matter of opinion and different experts might well hold different views, but, having regard to the potentialities of this chalk down land, a good case could certainly be made for equipping this land as one farm. Indeed, in his Report Sir Andrew Clark states that there were ample grounds for coming to that conclusion.
The Land Commission then had to consider whether the cost of equipping this land was justifiable, and what sort of return it would give on the investment. Its estimate, which was different from and lower than the estimate subsequently made by Crown Lands, was that the capital expenditure required would be some £22,500. It was also estimated that the rent which the equipped land might then command would be of the order of £3 an acre, assuming that agricultural conditions did not materially worsen. After allowing for depreciation and maintenance, this rent would give a net return of nearly 5 per cent. on the total capital invested, including, of course, the valuation of the land at the time of transfer. This is a very good return for agricultural investment.
Even if the estimated cost of capital works proved to be too low and the rent of £3 an acre were not maintained indefinitely, the Commission took the view that financially the scheme was justified.

As I have already said, the Commission had already taken its decision in 1950, before any question arose of a possible resale of the land to Mrs. Marten and the other successors of the original owners.
When Commander Marten approached us in June, 1952, the matter had to be considered entirely afresh, this time from the angle of possible resale to the successors of the former owners. Here I would like to say that the Land Commission is not itself empowered to buy or sell land. That is for the Minister of Agriculture of the day. But one of the Commission's statutory duties is to advise the Minister on matters of estate management which he may refer to it. When the question arose of the possible resale of the land, the Commission was asked to make a further inquiry and to give me its advice.
The Commission reconsidered the matter and its advice was the same as its conclusion in August, 1950, namely, that on agricultural and financial grounds the right course from the point of view of management was to equip the land as one farm. It concluded that to split the property must necessarily reduce its production, and it was not, therefore, concerning itself with the wishes, the farming capabilities or the equipment of the neighbouring farms.
I think it only fair to the Land Commission to point out that, in reaching its conclusions, it did not rely solely on the reports of officials. Before reaching its decision in 1950, Mr. Geoffrey Bourke, at that time a member of the Commission, personally inspected the area. Mr. Bourke has been President of the Land Agents' Society and a Vice-President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and has the highest reputation professionally. When the decision was reconsidered in 1952, following Commander Marten's application, the area was again visited by a member of the Commission, Mr. Watson Jones, a large-scale farmer and of the very highest repute.
To continue, and to give the House a picture, I would say that the Commission is an independent statutory body. Its principal function is to manage, on the Minister's behalf, agricultural land placed at its disposal, and this is by no means an easy task. Many of the properties that it deals with are "problem"


areas from the point of view of management. I am completely satisfied that, in the general conduct of its affairs, the Commission paid full regard to financial considerations, given the nature of its task. Its other main function is to advise me on matters relating to agricultural land management, and it was in this connection that it was asked to advise on Crichel Down.
In deciding what advice to give me, it had to assess all the relevant factors, and for this purpose it is naturally supplied with information and advice by the officers serving it. The Commission has all this information and advice before it when discussing and formulating its own conclusions, but—and this is the important point—having decided upon the opinion which, as a Commission, it wishes to give to me, it is no part of its duty to supply me also with the material which it has considered in reaching its conclusions.
After all, one of the advantages of seeking the views of an independent body like the Commission is that it can sift the evidence and reach a considered opinion in the light of that evidence, and, in accordance with its normal practice, the Commission did not attach to the considered opinion in this case which it sent me any of the material which had been placed before it, whether it was in favour of or contrary to the views which the Commission expressed. I am satisfied that there was no question of the Commission deliberately withholding information from me which it was part of its duty to pass on.
After receiving the Commission's advice, I thought it right, in the circumstances, to ask Lord Carrington, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, to go down and make a personal inspection to see if he concurred in the views expressed. This he did, and again, looking at the matter purely from the point of view of agricultural management, he came to the conclusion that the proposal to equip the land as one farm was right.
This was the position towards the end of 1952 when I had to take my decision whether to go ahead with the proposal to equip the land as one farm or to sell or let it as bare land to the adjoining occupiers. It is true that at that time both the Land Commission and I were under certain misapprehensions about

both the condition of the land when the Air Ministry acquired it in 1937 and the form of acquisition of most of it. These questions, though clearly important, do not, I think, affect the core of the agricultural management problem which had to be decided in 1952.
I decided that I had no reason to reject the advice that I had received on the agricultural and financial merits. As I have said, Sir Andrew Clark states that there were ample grounds for coming to the conclusion that this method of dealing with the land would result in increased production. Regarding finance, it seemed to me that the estimated return of about 5 per cent. was certainly satisfactory. To sum up this part of my remarks, both the Commission and Lord Carrington, after a personal inspection, had advised me that on agricultural and financial grounds the land should be equipped as one farm. That advice I had accepted.
I had now to decide whether, in spite of that, I should nevertheless sell the land back to the successors of the former owners because of the claim that Commander Marten was pressing for the return of his wife's property. The moral aspect of this claim was fully argued before I reached my decision. It is true, as I have said, that I was told incorrectly that the land from the Crichel and Langton Estates had been sold voluntarily, but I did not at the time regard the difference between voluntary and compulsory purchase as decisive. I recognised that the land owners concerned would have known that, failing agreement, compulsory powers could be exercised. Indeed, I knew that Mr. Hooper's 15 acres had been compulsorily acquired. Accordingly, I weighed this claim against the agricultural case.
Here I must remind the House that at the time I took my decision there was still an overriding need for maximum food production. When this Government took office at the end of 1951, there was a shortage of food and a grave crisis in the national balance of payments, and although my colleagues and I came into power with the firm intention to free the economy, restore liberty and encourage private enterprise, it was impossible in the circumstances existing at that time to proceed as rapidly as we would have wished.
In fact, during the last two years we have been able to make very substantial progress in these directions. We have now dismantled the major part of the apparatus of rationing and controls of the nation's food, and it is our policy progressively to get rid of emergency powers which permit private interests in land to be overridden. With this freeing of the economy, and the material improvement in the food situation today, it is possible to contemplate taking actions in the interests of liberty and free enterprise which the national economic situation would not have permitted two or three years ago. I shall announce later in my speech a change in the Government's policy regarding the sale of land, but I am now dealing with 1952.
In 1952, when I had to determine the future of Crichel Down, the food shortage was still serious, and in the national interest the necessities of maximum production had to prevail. I decided that the right course was to go ahead with the equipment of the land as one farm, and I gave instructions accordingly. I accept full responsibility for that decision, and I have endeavoured to explain to the House the reasons which led me to it.
Now I come to the next part of the story. I come to the sale to the Commissioners of Crown Lands. As the House will know, the Commissioners are in effect a body of trustees whose duty it is to administer the hereditary estates of the Crown. The capital remains the property of the Crown, but the income is surrendered to Parliament in exchange for the Civil List. Their Statutes provide for the reinvestment in land of any money which they receive from the sale of land. At that time I knew that they were looking out for land to purchase. I knew also that if they bought the Crichel Down land on condition that they equipped it, they could be relied on to observe that condition. They were approached, and their officials went into the whole question.
Although I am, ex officio, a Commissioner of Crown Lands as well as the Minister of Agriculture, the two offices are quite separate, and I need hardly say that I did not in any way intervene in these investigations to influence the recommendation that the officials would make. Crown Lands wanted to find out the cost of buying and equipping the land,

and the rent they would be able to get for it. They were naturally not prepared just to accept the previous estimates by the Land Commission. Their first step was to approach a possible tenant, who said that he would be ready to pay £3 an acre for the land equipped in an agreed way. In the view of Crown Lands, the cost of this equipment worked out at £32,000. The sale price of the land was agreed by the district valuer at £15,000.
On these figures, the net return on the investment, after allowing for depreciation and maintenance, was nearly 3½ per cent. It is not easy to get more than this on an agricultural investment, and management created no problem—that is an important point here—since Crown Lands already owned another estate nearby. They felt, therefore, that the proposition was a reasonable one. Crown Lands, therefore, decided to accept the proposal, and I approved of it in my double capacity as Minister of Agriculture and Commissioner of Crown Lands. The proposal went forward with Treasury consent.
As there has been criticism of this decision, I should like to read to the House from Conclusion No. 9 of Sir Andrew Clark's Report in which he states:
certainly the best, and probably the only certain way of ensuring that the purchaser implemented the Government policy was by a sale to Crown Lands, whose policy the Minister himself was in a position to control by virtue of his office as ex officio Commissioner.
I admit at once that it was most regrettable—and I make no attempt to excuse it—that the promises made on behalf of the Land Commission to previous applicants for the land that their applications would be considered in due course were not brought to the notice of those handling the matter until after Crown Lands felt that they were under a moral obligation to the prospective tenant. Had Crown Lands not taken this view, it would have been possible, even at that stage, to have advertised the tenancy, although such a procedure would have been unusual, because Crown Lands had not at that time decided to buy the land.
I now come to the question of the dilapidations allowed to the tenant, Mr. Tozer. This subject is complicated and highly technical, so I thought it desirable


to get independent professional advice about it. I accordingly asked the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to nominate a suitable person to advise me on the propriety and competence of the actions of the Crown Receivers. The President nominated for this purpose Mr. Charles Walmsley, a Fellow and Member of the Council of the Royal Institution, a Fellow of the Land Agents' Society, a Member of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, and a partner in the Manchester firm of Meller, Speakman and Hall. Mr. Walmsley went into this matter very thoroughly and provided me with a full report. I am most grateful to him for giving his services for this task at very short notice. I am arranging for a few copies of the report to be placed in the Library, so that hon. Members who are specially interested in this subject can study it alongside the transcript of evidence and the other relevant papers which were put there earlier.
Mr. Walmsley considers that in two respects there is evidence of faulty judgment on the part of Messrs. Sanctuary and Son, but that this did not result in any prejudice to the interests of their clients, Crown Lands. In all other respects, he considers that the Crown Receivers showed a high level of competency in this matter and that the propriety of their actions cannot be questioned.
I have considered very carefully, in the light of Sir Andrew Clark's Report and the comments made by Mr. Walmsley, the firm's position as Crown Receivers in Dorset. I have decided that other arrangements must be made for managing the Crichel Down land, but that I should not make any immediate change in the management of the one other Crown property in Dorset. I shall be referring again to the position of Messrs. Sanctuary and Son a little later on. I have given the House a plain account of the history of this case so that hon. Members can see for themselves the reasons which led to the various actions taken, and now I should like to turn to certain matters of a more general nature, but directly related to the circumstances of this case.
First, I should like to say a word about the conduct of the civil servants concerned. General issues of great constitutional importance arise in this regard. My

right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs will deal with them when he speaks later in this debate. I am quite clear that it would be deplorable if there were to be any departure from the recognised constitutional position. I, as Minister, must accept full responsibility to Parliament for any mistakes and inefficiency of officials in my Department, just as, when my officials bring off any successes on my behalf, I take full credit for them.
Any departure from this long-established rule is bound to bring the Civil Service right into the political arena, and that we should all, on both sides of the House, deprecate most vigorously. I shall have something more to say about Ministerial responsibility before I sit down; I would only add, at this stage, that it should not be thought that this means that I am bound to endorse the actions of officials, whatever they may be, or that I or any other Minister must shield those who make errors against proper consequences
When, in October of last year, I decided to arrange for a public inquiry, it had been brought to my notice that rumours of corruption and personal dishonesty were circulating. It was this information which finally led me to the conclusion that an independent inquiry should be held into the whole circumstances of the case. Sir Andrew Clark reported that he had found no trace of anything in the nature of bribery, corruption or personal dishonesty, and in the short statement that I made in the House on 15th June I said that the inquiry had thus achieved my main purpose.
Since then I have been much criticised for seeming, in that statement, to attach too much importance to the dismissal of any suggestion of corruption, and too little to the other faults which have been brought to light. This was very far from my intention. I never sought to obscure the fact that mistakes and grave errors of judgment were made which undoubtedly merited severe censure and reprimand.
The accusation has been made publicly that officials wilfully misled me. Although there were certain inaccuracies and deficiencies in the information given me, when I took my decision, I had the main facts before me, and my advisers


were certainly not guilty of wilfully misleading me. I underline the word "wilfully."
I now turn to the question of disciplinary action. The conduct of the civil servants concerned has been the subject of a public inquiry and of a report and, as a result, they have received public censure and reprimand. This in itself is a most severe punishment. I still hold the view which I expressed in the original statement I made in this House on 15th June, but there does remain the question as to what action may be necessary to maintain public confidence in the administration of Departments. The Government thought it right that the need for any such action should be further reviewed. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister arranged for a small advisory Committee of experienced persons to review this aspect of the matter. They have completed their task swiftly and presented a report. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who were they?"] If the House will wait one minute, I shall give the names.
The Committee was asked to consider whether, in order to maintain public confidence in the administration of Departments, any of the officers whose conduct was called in question in Sir Andrew Clark's Report should be transferred from their existing duties to other posts. It was asked to take into account both the public interest and the efficiency of the public service and fair treatment of the individuals concerned. It was not, in any sense, asked to review Sir Andrew Clark's findings, or to conduct an inquiry leading to further disciplinary action.
The committee consisted of Sir John Woods, a former Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade and now a director of the English Electric Co. and other companies, Sir Maurice Holmes, a former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, and Sir Harry Pilkington. The Report of the Committee will be available in the Vote Office when I sit down, but it may be convenient if I indicate briefly its substance.
The Committee states that there are five civil servants whose actions are criticised with varying degrees of severity in Sir Andrew Clark's Report. Having studied the Report, read the observations submitted to me by these five officers

and interviewed them, it reached a conclusion in the case of Mr. Eastwood, the Permanent Commissioner of Crown Lands, that his usefulness as a public servant would be impaired if he were to remain in his present post. It recommends, therefore, that he should be transferred to other duties. Three of the four other officers involved are not now employed on the work on which they were engaged when dealing with the Crichel Down case, and the Committee recommends no action in regard to them.
I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the three members of this Committee for undertaking so swiftly the task of familiarising themselves with the details of this matter and for tendering their considered advice on the action that should be taken. The Government fully accept this advice and are taking steps to give early effect to it. They are confident that Parliament and the public, as well as the Civil Service, will accept the review by this Committee of experienced and impartial persons as disposing of this aspect of the matter in a proper and fair manner.
When the new Permanent Commissioner of Crown Lands is appointed one of his first tasks will be to study what has happened in the Crichel Down case. It will then be for him—

Mr. Arthur Colegate: The Minister has announced the fate of four of these civil servants. He said there were five concerned. Can he say what has been done about the fifth?

Sir T. Dugdale: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the Report. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am only saying that the Report will be available, and that it will be written out in very great detail.

Captain Robert Ryder: The remark my right hon. Friend made was inaudible to some of us. Will he say it again?

Sir T. Dugdale: I said that the Report will be in the Vote Office when I sit down, and all these details are contained in the Report.
When the new Permanent Commissioner is appointed, one of his first tasks will be to study all that has happened in the Crichel Down case. It will then be for him to consider whether Sanctuary


and Son should continue as the Crown Receivers for the remaining Crown properties in that area.
I have already announced that there is to be an independent review of the organisation for administering Crown Lands. In addition, I am arranging for a thorough examination of the organisation and methods adopted within the Ministry and the Agricultural Land Commission for dealing with transactions in agricultural land. This examination will include the work of the Agricultural Land Service both at headquarters and in the provincial centres and counties.
I am very glad to say that Sir Arton Wilson and Mr. F. W. Allam have agreed to undertake this task. Sir Arton Wilson recently retired after a distinguished career in the Civil Service. He was for a number of years the Principal Establishment and Organisation Officer of the Ministry of Labour, and he was subsequently Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions. Mr. Allam is a practising land agent with wide experience in estate management, and is a past member of the Council of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and has acted as chairman of its agricultural and forestry committee, and he has also been President of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers. In the light of this examination, it will be necessary to consider further the organisation of the Department and the functions and organisation of the Land Commission.
I turn to the question of the disposal of agricultural land. In the past the conception of the Agricultural Land Commission has been that it would retain the management of properties even after improving them. It is no part of this Government's philosophy that the State should continue to own and manage any agricultural land suitable for sale. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] After discussion with the Commission, I decided early last year that, after any necessary improvement, land should be sold wherever this can suitably be done. It will not be possible in all cases. For instance, much of the land on airfields or intermixed with Forestry Commission properties would not be suitable for sale. Nevertheless, the decision is an important one and will progressively take effect.
This leads me to the general question of the policy which the Government have had under consideration for some time, namely, the disposal of agricultural land which was acquired compulsorily or under threat of compulsion and is no longer required for the purpose for which it was acquired. The extent of this problem should not be exaggerated. Departments do not normally buy land outright unless they expect to need it permanently. The question of releasing it, therefore, seldom arises, except when there has been extensive acquisition on threat of war or during war. Current cases are mostly concerned with acquisitions immediately before the war or during the war. The long-term problem should be a very small one indeed.
The Government have decided that where agricultural land which was acquired compulsorily or under threat of compulsion is no longer wanted by the original acquiring Department or immediately by any other Government Department possessing compulsory purchase powers for a purpose for which the use of those powers would be justified, then the land will be sold. This means that transfers of such land from one Government Department to another will not be made in future unless at the time of transfer the receiving Department could and would have bought the land compulsorily if it had been in private ownership.
Let me give an example to the House of how that will work. Suppose the War Office had compulsorily acquired agricultural land for a training area and no longer wanted it for that purpose. If the Air Ministry currently wanted it for a bombing range and would have taken steps to acquire it compulsorily for that purpose, if the land had been in private ownership, the land in that case would be transferred to the Air Ministry.
It is a matter for consideration whether, except in time of emergency, provision ought not to be made for some form of public inquiry in the event of objection to the transfer by the former owner or other persons interested. Considerations of national security and the possible need for quick execution of essential defence plans would, of course, naturally be important factors, but the land would not be transferred to one of the Agricultural Departments to manage as agricultural land because those Departments would


have no power to buy such land compulsorily.
There is one exception which we must make to this rule, and that is where agricultural land has been so substantially altered in character while in possession of a Government Department that if it were sold it could not be used for agriculture in the same way as when it was originally acquired. The obvious example of this is where an airfield has been made with concrete runways, hangars and other buildings, and the original ownership boundaries have been obliterated. The problem of making the best use of the remaining agricultural land on such an airfield is not an easy one. Often such work as drainage, and fencing, and sometimes the provision of buildings, is necessary.
In such circumstances the land may need to be retained in public ownership, at any rate while being rehabilitated, and would be transferred for management to the Agricultural Department concerned. Subject to such exceptions as airfields, these new arrangements will in future preclude the transfer to the Agricultural Departments of agricultural land which was acquired compulsorily or under threat of compulsion by any other Government Department, and this will mean that such a transfer as took place at Crichel Down from the Air Ministry to the Ministry of Agriculture will not happen in future.
Where land is to be sold in accordance with the general policy I have just outlined, the Government have considered what attitude to adopt towards claims by former owners or their successors to buy it back. The Government recognise that the former owner or certain of his successors may fairly claim that they should be given a special opportunity to buy such land. There may be cases where this cannot be done. The whole character of the land may have been altered, for instance, by the erection on it of buildings other than agricultural buildings, or, as I have said already, by the laying down of concrete runways on an airfield, in such a way as to make it impracticable to restore the former boundaries: or it may have been compulsorily acquired under the Agriculture Act, 1947; or, again, there may be small parcels of land left over from land acquired for, say,

trunk roads or forestry which may not be suitable for resale to the former owners. There are also cases where Departments have statutory powers of acquisition for the purpose of ensuring that land is used in a particular way, and in order to ensure such use they may have to sell it for special purposes. This is true, for instance, of acquisitions by the Board of Trade under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945.
These are only some examples of the circumstances which may relate to a parcel of land and so make any rigid rule impracticable. It will also sometimes be a matter of difficulty to decide whether the successor in title has a special personal claim.
Nevertheless, the Government will in future consider each case on its merits with the desire that, where circumstances show that the land can properly be offered to a former owner or his successor who can establish his claim, this will be done at a price assessed by the district valuer as being the current market price. This procedure cannot be applied retrospectively; it can only apply to future disposals. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The Government have given further consideration—

Mr. R. T. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying, ire effect, that property will be sold to a former owner at a lesser price than someone else is prepared to pay for it?

Sir T. Dugdale: It will be at the current market price as assessed by the district valuer. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will look at this in print, he will see how it is proposed to work.

Mr. Hugh Dalton: It will not be by auction?

Sir T. Dugdale: No, it will be at the current market price as assessed by the district valuer.
The Government have given further consideration to the future of the land at Crichel Down. I have already explained to the House how I reached the decision in 1952 that, on agricultural grounds and with proper regard for financial considerations, the right course was to equip the land as one farm. I have already explained that I considered very carefully the claim advanced by


Commander Marten, but came to the conclusion that this did not outweigh the agricultural case.
In the circumstances at that time, when maximum production was essential, I am confident that my decision was right, but today, two years later, the food situation has materially altered for the better, thanks to the work of the present Government. Moreover, as I have just said, the Government have now made the important new decision that where a former owner or his successor can establish a special personal claim, he will, where possible, be given a special opportunity to buy land back when it is no longer wanted for Government purposes.
The Government would be prepared, so far as lies within their power, to apply the new procedure to Crichel Down, even though it cannot in general be applied retrospectively. There are, however, practical difficulties in applying the policy at Crichel Down. The land there is already let to a tenant, and there is an obligation to equip it. The land could be sold with vacant possession only if Crown Lands were justified in giving the tenant notice to quit or if the tenant were ready to surrender his tenancy. In my opinion, Crown Lands could not justifiably serve a notice to quit on the ground that this was in the interests of efficient farming or estate management—which in this case is the only ground on which my consent to a termination of the tenancy could be sought and given under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1948.
The sale of the land would, therefore, only be possible subject to the tenancy and to the obligation to equip the land on the scale proposed. So long as the present tenancy stands, such a sale could clearly be to only one individual and not to the three successors of the former owners. It is possible that the three successors of the former owners could agree among themselves that one of them should be the sole purchaser of all the land. If so, I should be prepared to sell the land, subject to the tenancy and the obligation to equip, to one of the successors of the former owners.
I have nearly finished, Mr. Speaker. I am afraid that I have detained the House rather a long time—

Mr. Thomas Williams: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves

that point, does he imply by his suggestion of a possible sale to a successor and not the original owner—since two out of the three owners are now dead and the other is not interested—that the Government would be willing to amend the 1948 Act to make it possible for him to agree to a notice to quit?

Sir T. Dugdale: No, it does not mean that; we should not have to amend the 1948 Act.
I have nearly finished. I have tried to accomplish my duty to the House, which was to give an accurate account of the history of the Crichel Down case. I have told the House of the action which has been taken, and which will be taken, in the design to make a recurrence of the present case impossible. I have announced changes which the Government intend to make in land transaction procedure. I have told the House of the offer of resale of the Crichel Down land under certain conditions. I have no regrets at having ordered a public inquiry, for I am certain that good will come out of it. I have been able to get well under way the action necessary following Sir Andrew Clark's Report.
Having now had this opportunity of rendering account to Parliament of the actions which I thought fit to take, I have, as the Minister responsible during this period, tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister, who is submitting it to the Queen.

4.27 p.m.

Mr. George Brown (Belper): The last sentence of the right hon. Gentleman's speech obviously makes this moment—as it must for those who have known him longer than I have: I have known him for 10 years—a very uncomfortable one. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I have had occasion to speak to the right hon. Gentleman from this Box in recent months a little roughly at times, perhaps, for a younger man to an older man, but I have said repeatedly—I said it in the country last Friday and perhaps I may repeat it now to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite—that the Government will have difficulty in finding from their own benches a Minister of Agriculture who will be as good for their purposes as the right hon. Gentleman has been.
The task of a Minister of Agriculture in any Government that in this country


of 54 million people, where so few are engaged on the land or connected with it, is necessarily not an easy one. I believe that the task of the right hon. Gentleman in the present Government has been an even more difficult one than in the normal run. I hope that Government back benchers will take no credit unto themselves for what the right hon. Gentleman has now done. They have given him the minimum of support when he has been in trouble, which has arisen very largely because of the demands which have been made on him and not by his own will. They have hunted and harassed him. Whatever we feel about what has led up to this case, it must be a very sad moment for us all, more on the Government side of the House than on the Opposition side.
I wanted to say some things of a vigorous nature this afternoon. Obviously, one now feels less willing to do so. On the other hand, as the right hon. Gentleman said, many really important issues arise in the course of this case, and even now I do not agree with some of the conclusions which he has drawn. I certainly do not agree with the main tenor of the last part of his speech. I feel that the House will forgive me if I try to take into account the new personal situation, particularly on this day, which must be an unhappy one for the Minister, and put things differently, but I hope the House will not mind if I say that I feel it my duty to put our case as I see it none the less for that.
The only other personal thing which perhaps the Minister will permit me to say to him is this. His announcements about new policy, in so far as I could follow them, frightened me very considerably. He told the country that the food position was so materially altered that the best agricultural use of the land no longer mattered. [Interruption.] Hon. Members will find that I cannot be shouted down. He said that the best agricultural use of land no longer mattered. [HON. MEMBERS: "He never said that."] I think that he said it, and I am entitled to put this conclusion to the House. The Home Secretary can clear it up when he replies if my deduction is wrong.
This is the reason I think it. The Government now want to transfer land to a body specially set up to look at the agricultural considerations before deciding

what to do with it. They will simply decide to sell it just because no one wants it for the purpose, or a similar purpose, to that for which it was requisitioned. To say that on top of a speech at Newcastle, not two months ago, when the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who sits in another place, told the farming community that the cost of maintaining and 'supporting British agriculture at its present level was already too high and must 'be reduced—what does this add up to? This is the Kettering speech of Mr. Chamberlain back again—food production and maximum production no longer matter.
How does the Prime Minister expect the farmers outside, and the farm workers outside, who are wondering whether to stay on the land for a wage nearly £3 less than is being paid in the towns, and the landowners, wondering what to do with their land, will feel now that the position has so materially altered that maximum food production is no longer the order of the day? Which tenant is now going to involve himself in greater capital expenditure on somebody else's farm? Which landlord is now going to put money into land preservation to get a return on it? Which farm worker, faced with the chance of getting off the land, is going to stay in an industry which the Government have told him no longer matters so much in this new changed situation?
It does not matter that I believe that their judgment is wrong. It does not matter that I believe that they are playing a most stupid game in counting upon a temporary surplus of grain in North America, when already the acreages in North America are being cut for this year's production. It does not matter that I think that their judgment is wrong in counting upon getting barley from Iraq at £10 a ton on the basis that Iraq will go on accepting the very low standard of living which makes this possible. What matters is that they have declared that, in their view, this is the situation.
I say frankly that I am very sorry that the Minister, in what for a large part was the finest speech I have heard him make in this House, did not stick to his guns to the very end. I regret more than anything that the men on the Front Bench opposite, who must have forced this


policy on him, do not have their names tagged to this instead of his. This is a sad sell-out for agriculture. Last night I spoke on the telephone to a very successful Dorset farmer who is not concerned in, this Crichel Down case one way or the other. What he said to me last night had great significance in the light of what we have heard, and although I did not take a great deal of notice of it at the time, I can repeat what he said pretty accurately. He said, "I cannot tell you any more about it than you already know; but I say to you, cut as had as you can at this Government because they are being an unmitigated disaster to British agriculture." He said, "They are destroying our confidence." [Interruption.] This is not a giggling matter. The hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) can go into his constituency and I will go with him let us put this to the farmers of the County of Southampton and see what they feel about it. This fellow said: "They are destroying our confidence and lowering our morale. We are losing the chance of producing more."
I believe that, in fact, what the Minister has done today in the name of his Government has been to prove how right that chap was, and to show how much danger there is for agriculture while this Government last. I hope that the Prime Minister, who has now left the Chamber, will now. as a result of Crichel Down—I see that the hon. and gallant Member for Bedford (Captain Soames) is here and he will 5e able to report to the right hon. Gentleman—and as a result of what has happened to the Minister, take into account the damage that he is doing, as representing this Government, so far as almost our most important basic industry is concerned. I hope that he will think very seriously about it.
I now turn to this story which forms the background of our debate today. It is a very sad and a very sorry story. There can be no doubt about that. What- ever the views of the right hon. Gentle- man—and I do not take all the same views as he does—about the way in which things have gone, as the result of a long story of delay, indecision and muddle, I think that they culminated—and I am surprised that the Minister did not make this point—in perhaps the most curious public inquiry that has ever been set up it circumstances of this kind.
I will say a word about the form of the inquiry and about the Report in a few moments, but there is no doubt in my mind that the whole history of this thing really reflects the failure of the Government at every level to know what they want to do. This cannot be shuffled off on to civil servants. I shall have a word to say about civil servants and what I feel about the particular ones who figure in this Report. But to try to shuffle, as back benchers opposite have tried to do, the whole responsibility on to civil servants instead of where it ought to be, on the Administration, is I think quite wrong.
I think that what has really happened in the Ministry of Agriculture is that the civil servants there have been, because of the switches and changes of policy and because of the repeated intervention of other Departments—[Interruption.]—I am not putting the onus on the Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "You are."]—I am putting the onus on his colleagues. It is no use thinking that by getting rid of the right hon. Gentleman, as some other hon. Members who sat on the benches opposite were got rid of—as Sir John Gilmour or Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith were got rid of—will solve the problem. The next Minister will be in the same trouble as the right hon. Gentleman, the same trouble as his predecessors in that part of the House, the same trouble as Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith and all those pre-war Tory Ministers were in. The civil servants in the Department have found it impossible to follow a consistent policy because all the time there have been these interventions, pressures from outside, and moves from other Departments that have completely messed about all the decisions, even when they have been taken. It is that to which the Prime Minister has got to devote his mind.
In the case of Crichel Down, it is not only the Minister at the head of the Department who has some heart-searching to do on the question of delay and indecision. In fact, the Minister has rather less to do than most. I notice from Sir Andrew Clark's Report that on one occasion it took the Parliamentary Secretary seven months to reply to a letter, and when he did get round to it, it was only because the much-maligned Mr. Wilcox discovered from some correspondence that in courtesy the Parliamentary Secretary ought to send a letter to the hon.


Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch) for him to, pass on to Commander Marten. So the muddle is much more than muddle and delay by the Minister himself. All those in the Department are considerably involved.
Let me go straight to the question of responsibility for the Crichel Down muddle; I will come back to the civil servants presently. Let me look for a moment at the official responsibility. As the right hon. Gentleman quite fairly said, the decision to farm Crichel Down as one holding, to equip it as one holding and to farm it by one tenant, was a decision to which each of the three Ministers concerned—that is to say, the right hon. Gentleman and his two Parliamentary Secretaries—has committed himself. It has been in the hands of each of them at different times.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary who is a Member of this House had it in June, 1952. We know that the Minister had it a month later. The noble Lord the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in the House of Lords had it in November, 1952. They all personally had it; I do not mean they had it because it was in the Department, but because letters or references on it were sent to them. They each permitted the subsequent delay to continue. They all of them permitted the subsequent changes and switches in policy to go on and they finally, all of them, approved of the decision. That comes out quite clearly in the volume of evidence in which their appearances before Sir Andrew Clark's tribunal, if that is the right word, were considered.
May I say this about the two decisions? The decision to transfer the land from the Air Ministry to the Agricultural Land Commission for management was, in my view, perfectly right. What would have happened otherwise? The land would have been sold back not even in the condition it was in when it was bought. It would have been sold back with all the infestation and rubble and with all the over-growing that occurred while the Air Force were bombing it. The successors of the former owners would not have wanted to buy the land in that condition. What would have been the valuation price?
I am now accepting the view of Commander Marten and of other gentlemen

concerned about the condition of their land when it was bought from them. There was some argument before Sir Andrew Clark about that. I accept the opinion that Commander Marten in due course gave upon it. But when it was finished with by the Air Force, it was not in that condition. It has taken the Land Commission three years to pull it round. So the Department could not even have offered back to Commander Marten at that stage land capable of being used as a sheep run.
There are the same ill-considered policy decisions taken in panic time after time. If hon. Members opposite want to make their own policy effective, they cannot offer the land back for sale until the Land Commission or somebody has had it in order to rehabilitate it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Because at that point it is of no use to anybody. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] If hon. Members opposite think that the position of the country is such that the nation is entitled to take agricultural land in everyday use, turn it into rabbit- and rat-infested gorseland and scrub and then to say, "We are not going to pull it round. We will now sell it back to you and you can do it," they are going even further than the Minister went just now.

Mr. Colegate: It depends on the price.

Mr. Brown: It does not even depend on the price. Hon. Members on that side of the House really know this. The enormous job of rehabilitating land in that condition will not be done in these days by private owners, no matter if they are given back their land for nothing.

Mr. Cyril Osborne: rose—

Mr. Brown: I cannot give way. The hon. Member can make his case presently. I am saying it as it occurs to me, and it will not worry me if the hon. Member thinks I am wrong.
I say from this Box that when this decision, taken so hurriedly and announced so shortly. comes to be put into practice, it will not be worked in that way. There will be rehabilitation first—of course there will be. I am sure that that is how it will work out. It is ridiculous to announce panic decisions of this kind in that way.
I believe that it was right, and must always be right, to transfer land of that


kind to the Agricultural Land Commission for investigation as to its agricultural state and the best way of managing it. An awful lot of foolish mistakes have been made about Crichel Down and the Land Commission. Transferring the land to the Land Commission does not prejudge what is subsequently to be done with the land by way of managing it.
It is open to the Land Commission to recommend a variety of things. They can directly farm it themselves, something which, to the tribute of Sir Fred Burrows and these other very distinguished members of the Commission, they have been very reluctant to do. They can farm it themselves directly, if that is the right thing to do in the early stages, or even in the long-term stages. The Commission can recommend sale or letting either as bare land or as equipped land.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) transferred this land to the Agricultural Land Commission for management, he did not settle any of those things. The management of the land falls to be done afterwards. What the Government are now doing is to prevent anybody from even considering what is the best thing to do in the light of the requirements of the land. I think that the first decision to transfer it was absolutely right.

Mr. Archer Baldwin: Rubbish.

Mr. Brown: It is not for me to say whether the second decision was right. I am not a Minister these days and I do not have access, except now through Sir Andrew Clark's Report and the transcript of evidence, to all the considerations. It is for the Ministers to say whether the recommendation that they got from the Land Commission—that this land would be best managed by being equipped and let as one holding—would have been the right thing to do.
As Sir Andrew Clark says in his Report, there were ample grounds for so deciding. That seems on the whole to be a fairly wide tribute from a gentleman who showed no tenderness necessarily to public ownership. If he is prepared to say that, there must be a good deal in it. I feel that what the Minister said was the right thing to do, and that

nobody has the right to treat the Crichel Down case as though the first decision to transfer the land for management meant that something sinister was brewing in British agriculture.

Mr. J. B. Godbei: rose—

Mr. Brown: No, I cannot give way.
What I think intolerable was the interference with the Agricultural Land Commission in the carrying out of its duty through the Minister being subject to enormous political pressure from the party machine behind them and in the country. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, and may I say something else, for which I hope hon. Members will forgive me.

Mr. Osborne: What evidence has the right hon. Gentleman for the statement he has just made?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman should stop interrupting because he cannot jump up, talk and listen all at the same time. Those are too many things to do at once. He may be able to do one of them, and I suggest that he listens to what I have to say.
If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will read the transcript of evidence—not Sir Andrew Clark's part, but the shorthand note of the proceedings—it will be instructive for them. I have only got a small piece of it here because it stands a considerable height when placed on the table and it took me many hours to get through it. However, it is worth doing because one cannot understand what has happened in this case until one has read all the evidence, including the questions and answers, the correspondence and the minutes.
If hon. Members opposite would read the transcript they would find that every time a decision was taken by the Minister to enable the A.L.C. to take over, a party organisation, through a number of back benchers opposite, asked the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for an explanation, and he brought back all the files and other items which held up all the work while the whole thing was reconsidered. This went on for months, for years, and that is how it is that the Agricultural Land Commission, which would have had this land equipped and ready to let to a private enterprise farmer by Michaelmas, 1952, is still burdened with it, and has not started to lay a single brick, even in 1954.

Mr. Walter Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman said that he read through the transcript. So have I, and I absolutely challenge what he has just been saying. There is no evidence whatever in the transcript of evidence that any party organisation interfered at any time.

Mr. Brown: Hon. Members opposite will have to draw their own conclusions. [Laughter.] I can always tell when the House is ready to interrupt, and I think it is better to draw it first because it can than settle itself.
If the right hon. Gentleman reads the evidence of Commander Marten's intervention and stories of the protest meetings in Dorset he will see that heavy pressure was put upon hon. Members from that part of the country, particularly upon the hon. Member for Dorset, North, and that was how the pressure was organised. They are entitled so to organise it, and, of course, that is the sort of pressure that the farmers down there would be likely to organise. The pressure was organised by the party which hon. Members opposite are bound to support.
Therefore, I say it was political pressure transmitting itself through the Minister to the A.L.C., which has been responsible for this land not being equipped and not being under cultivation as it would have been by Michaelmas, 1952, had this pressure not been exerted.

Mr. Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman has repeated—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) cannot interrupt if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) does not give way.

Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman said that he had read the transcript, and he was saying that I had repeated my view of some of it. That is why I am on my feet. I am here expressing my view on this matter, and the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to repeat his view later. All I have done is to invite hon. Members who have not yet read the transcript of evidence to do so when they will see that what I am saying is right.

Mr. Elliot: rose—

Mr. Brown: No, I will not give way. I have given the House my view on the

Report and the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to do the same in a moment or two.

Mr. Elliot: I am entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman for the evidence for his statement.

Mr. Brown: I cannot go through six volumes of evidence just now, because I do not wish to detain the House. I know that what I have said is there, and all one has to do is to read the evidence, particularly that of Commander Marten and Mr. Wilcox, including their cross-examination, to see that what I have said is correct.
I now turn to something else. Not only has this delayed the cultivation of the land, but it has cost a good deal of public money to go into something which would otherwise not have been necessary, and it has resulted in frustration and in the lowering of the morale which falls largely on the Civil Service.
May I say something about the inquiry itself. I want to put some questions to the Home Secretary which are all the more serious in the light of what the Minister has said. This inquiry was not set up under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, as were some others in recent times. This inquiry was, in fact, set up by the Minister with none of the protections of that Act. The inquirer was told to exclude policy considerations from his Report, something which he does not seem to have done very well. Individual civil servants were not referred to as subjects or objects of the inquiry.
I want to ask the Home Secretary what was the position of Sir Andrew Clark if this inquiry was not set up under that Act. I see in the transcript and, I think, in the Report, that he is frequently referred to as "the Commissioner." Did he hold the Queen's commission? Was he, in fact, in that position or was he not? I do not think that this is a quibble because a great deal turns on it in regard to the position of the people who went before him. Who gave him the Queen's commission, and how did that affect the position of those called?
It is rather interesting to note that none of those who cast reflections upon the ability of the neighbouring farmers gave evidence. At the beginning of his Report Sir Andrew Clark says that two


people did not give evidence, hut, by the time one reads through the Report, one finds that four did not give evidence. They were all people who cast doubts on the farming ability of the neighbouring owners. Did they not give evidence because there was no protection for people who were called? Would there, in fact, be little or no defence to a charge of slander or libel if somebody went there and sought to justify opinions expressed elsewhere?
What about the legal representation for the people who were sent there, or who volunteered to go? I think that the whole position in relation to this rather curious inquiry is in no way paralleled by any other which has been set up. It is no use hon. Members opposite saying, "They were civil servants who appeared before it, and we know what bureaucrats are.", I doubt whether any hon. Member in any part of the House really takes that view, because it is most important, as the Minister said, that the traditions of our Civil Service should be protected and its standards maintained. At no time is that so necessary as when we have reason to think that somebody has transgressed them, because perhaps the most important thing is to maintain our standards in order that there shall not be any reflection upon the Civil Service generally.
I gravely doubt whether the form of inquiry set up gave any of the protections which those civil servants ought to have had if the Commissioner was to get at the facts. I wonder whether the Home Secretary, in the light of all this, thinks that a one-man inquiry is ever a good thing for this purpose, or whether we are not putting a strong weapon in the hands of one man, particularly if, like most of us, he has strong views himself.
I am bound to say that the evidence gets at the facts rather well—if one reads the transcript, they can be picked out—but I am not prepared to say the same for the Report. I regard this as a very partial Report, full of partiality from the beginning, very prejudiced and very argumentative where it is supposed to be factual, and inaccurate. May I give evidence of what I regard as partiality?
At the foot of page 10 there is reference to a figure given by Mr. Brown, which was thought to be inaccurate and which subsequently misled everybody and to

which the Minister has paid attention. In the transcript of evidence, however, it is clear that the figure of 170 acres of rough downland, existing on the Hardings' farm at the time when it was being considered in 1952, is taken bodily by Mr. Brown from the Hardings' own agricultural return to the Ministry. That is stated quite clearly and not disputed in the evidence. The mistake is to accept as accurate the Hardings' own statutory return. But does the Commissioner say that in his Report? No, he does not. He says that Mr. Brown obtained from obsolete records the information that was inaccurate.
In my view, the phrase "obsolete records" is not a reproduction of Mr. Harding's current agricultural return, and the phrase is chosen because it is likely to mislead people into believing that the records of the Ministry were obsolete. If this Report had been impartial, it would have made clear that the 170 acres error arose because Mr. Harding had put on his return, for some reason or other, that he had more downland than he had.

Viscount Lambton: What date?

Mr. Brown: Look at Mr. Brown's return. I think it refers to 1952, but it does not matter what year.

Viscount Lambton: It does.

Mr. Brown: I think that an impartial Report would say that there was an error in Mr. Brown's report but that, since that error was because the farmer misrepresented his own acreages, Mr. Brown could not be blamed for that. But that is not said, and it is made to look as if there were something wrong with the records in the Department.
There is one other thing which shows partiality. Everywhere in the transcript of evidence where there is a reference to an official estimate, by the time that gets into the Report it is always guesswork—in every single case. Any estimate made by a Ministry official, made by a member of the Commission, made by a farmer member, is always referred to there as guesswork. That, again, is anything but an impartial way of referring to it.
If one looks at the report of Mr. Eastwood's evidence about the estimate of the rent that could be got and about


the estimate of what the land used to be worth, it will be seen that the Commissioner said in his Report, in paragraph 78, page 21:
It is regrettable that a responsible official in the position of a Trustee, as Mr. Eastwood undoubtedly was, should have answered questions relating to authority for the expenditure of Trust moneys in this light-hearted manner.
That is rather stinging, but here is the next sentence:
In point of fact, however, no harm can have been done since the evidence clearly showed that Mr. Tozer was a first class farmer, and the rent of £3 per acre was a very good one.
That is exactly what Mr. Eastwood says it was, and for which he is regarded as being light-hearted and irresponsible. On the 7s. 6d. which the Commissioner thinks is light-hearted and irresponsible, he goes on to say:
It also appeared that the estimated rental value of the land pre-war at 7s. 6d. per acre, though low was not altogether unreasonable.
So that the things which are irresponsible and light-hearted in both respects in the same paragraph he finds are accurate.
Now may I refer to the former owners: because one man has lost his job, three others have been transferred to other duties and the Minister has now lost his job, so we are entitled to look at this Report simply to show whether it is an accurate one to begin with. I would have thought that a man whose Report was to have this serious effect would be careful about the terms he used, but in paragraph 8 on page 28 he says:
(b) The previous owners were anxious to repurchase their respective holdings and would have paid a total of about £21,000 for the land in its then condition.
(c) The previous owners were all first class farmers and could have been relied upon to farm their respective areas properly"—
But all the previous owners were dead. [Laughter.] This is more than just funny; this is a tragic report that has put one Minister, at any rate temporarily, out of public life, one civil servant out of his job, and heaven knows what has happened to the other three.
Were civil servants one fraction as careless of writing their minutes as that, they would receive violent animadversions. This was evidence of their suitability. I assume he knew the previous owners were dead, but he does not even

take the care to describe the people concerned properly as their successors. Yet, because everyone says that the previous owners were good farmers, how does it follow that the successors would have been good farmers, successors who, in some cases, were not even their descendants? How does it follow that the Commission was wrong to take the view that it did? There are many other examples to which I could draw attention if hon. Members wished, but perhaps those are enough.
May I give one example of what I think is contradiction but which is interesting? On page 29, in conclusion 9, there is a paragraph beginning:
The second course (b), although the one originally determined upon by the Land Commission when the possibility of a sale was thought to be excluded, was financially unsound and a sale of the land was clearly preferable.
Now, passing to conclusion 10, which discusses the possibility of the Crown Commissioners, who are also a public body, doing the same thing, he said:
…yet, accepting (as of course I must) the policy decision that the land must be equipped and farmed as one unit, it may well have been justified as the only feasible method of implementing that policy.
If the only feasible method of implementing that policy when the Crown Commissioners own the land is to farm it as one unit, why has it become financially unsound and unpreferable when the Agricultural Land Commission, which is responsible to the right hon. Gentleman, owns it and does it? All that is changed in the agency. It is the same job, it is still equipping it, it is still owning it publicly, it is still letting it to a tenant.
All he is saying is that once it has gone to the Crown Commissioners, then it may be the only feasible way of doing it, but that if it stays with the Agricultural Land Commission it is, in his view, financially unsound and should not happen. I regard that as a contradiction. The only argument—and he could not argue about it because it was not in his terms of reference—is whether the Crown Commissioners are better at doing it than the Agricultural Land Commission.
I will not argue now about what the Report says of Ministerial responsibility or what flows from the Report in that respect. I pass over that and come to the question of the Civil Service, particularly in view of what has been said today. I


have no doubt at all that certain members of the Civil Service have failed to present the case adequately to the Minister. I think they failed to see that the Minister realised the implications of what was happening or of decisions that were to be taken. I certainly think they have treated some of the outsiders much less well than I should like to think anybody would have done when I was in the Department.
I do not condone or shield any of them, but do not let us have any misunderstanding, in view of the nature of the Report itself, about what everybody was contending with in this case. There is a lot of talk about lack of courtesy on the part of officials and of their not treating outsiders properly. It is quite likely that they had quite a time in some of the meetings that took place. There is an instance in the transcript where Commander Marten refers to the fact that he pressed his case on the Department well beyond the bounds of civility. That may mean a lot of things. I wonder how far he went. I saw a reference to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture in a public speech which Commander Marten made. Everybody knows that friendship in this House has certain limits and that I would talk quite roughly about the hon. Gentleman at times, but I ask the House to listen to this extract as evidence of the other side in this case. It does not appear in the Report, but it is in a document or in a file of stuff which went to the Commissioner.
Commander Marten is referring to his interview with the Parliamentary Secretary. He says:
I said to Mr. Nugent, 'But I applied for our land back, or if you wished, the whole 700 acres, nearly two years ago.' 'Yes,' he said, but your application was to buy, and the land isn't being sold publicly.' 'But,' I said, 'I applied to buy the land to instal the Hardings as tenants.' 'Ah,' he said, 'that hardly constitutes an application on their part.'
I thought to myself"—
he is making this public and he sent a copy to the Minister with his compli-ments—
' you smooth creature, you're so slippery, you'd slide through the kitchen keyhole'.
That is Commander Marten referring to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary who, at every stage, as far as I could see, had done his best to see that Commander Marten had no grounds for complaint.
If Commander Marten is willing to refer in that way to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who had done him no harm but had given him a great deal of help, one might have a little bit of an impression of what he might well have done in the case of the Civil Service. This lack of courtesy which the Report attributes to one side only might very well have been very much a two-way business.
I should like to ask the Home Secretary a question on the subject of this wriggle about the transfer to the Commissioners of Crown Lands. I find it very difficult to discover why it was ever done. Neither the Commissioner, if that is what he is called, nor any of the people who went into court, asked the Ministry nor did the Ministry volunteer why this land was ever sold—so-called—to the Commissioners of Crown Lands.
What was the point of it? Up to this time it had been the responsibility of the A.L.C. and all the argument had been as to whether it should be let as one holding or broken up. Then somebody discovered this wonderful idea of transferring it, calling it a sale—because no money seems to have passed—to do the same thing with it. What was the point of that? What did it achieve? How did it improve the situation in any way?
If this had not been done, this trouble would not have arisen. The Agricultural Land Commission would have let by tender after advertising in the ordinary way. Part of this trouble came out of the decision to transfer and nobody, not even the Commissioner, has yet asked why it was done. Will the Home Secretary tell the House why it was done? I see no point in it at all. Has the land ever gone? The Commissioners of Crown Lands have received rent for the first year. Somebody has paid the dilapidations to the Commissioners of Crown Lands, who have paid it to Mr. Tozer. Have the Commissioners of Crown Lands yet got the land for which they have received rent? I still suspect that the land is with the Air Ministry and not even the Ministry of Agriculture. Therefore, it looks as if that muddle still exists or is not completely cleared up.
In fairness, the House must ask itself what happens now. I had intended to start by saying that I hoped to heaven that this business did not mean that there


would be interference with the 1947 Act. No matter how important we feel it is from some other aspect, agriculturally Crichel Down could not justify that change. It is no use my saying that now, because we have had the statement that it will interfere with the 1947 Act. Is it too late to appeal to the Minister, or to the Leader of the House, to communicate to the Minister's successor, that there should now be no interference at all with Crichel Down? What is done is done. Whether it is well done, badly done, wrongly done, or rightly done is a matter of opinion.
The land has now been let to a good farmer, a young man who wanted a farm of his own. He is a man in good agricultural standing in the district, a member of the National Farmers' Union County Executive and, I believe, a member of a sub-committee of the A.E.C. Last month a seeds demonstration was held on his family farm. He is in possession. He is waiting for equipment to get the holding going properly and to live on it. It is not fair now, because of the way these things have been done, to mess him about any more or to put him in jeopardy as a farmer.
I appeal, therefore, to the successor to the right hon. Gentleman to start his tenure with the courage which I should have liked the right hon. Gentleman to have used, and to say to his back benchers, "We have done our best to inquire into this and to meet criticism. We do not propose to interfere any further with the arrangements at Crichel." The equipment must go up there soon.
Reference has been made to the possibility of the three successors to the owners of Crichel agreeing among themselves as to who should have it. I should think that that would be a very unhappy thing to do. A lot of feeling must have been stirred up there by now. Public campaign meetings have been held and speeches have been made by Commander Marten. If the three were to agree, an obvious risk is that Commander Marten would be the one agreed upon. Mr. Tozer is the farmer who is in Crichel, having stayed in possession when he was asked to withdraw and having stood firm by what he thought were his rights when asked to withdraw, not only by the Crown

Commissioners but by Commander Marten. Having stood there firmly, I think it would be a quite improper thing now to sell that land to the ownership of Commander Marten so that Mr. Tozer became the tenant.
Whatever we do about the rest of the land, which we on this side of the House do not like doing, I hope that the Home Secretary will tell us tonight that he will see there is no interference there. I hope, too, he will say that something more has to be done about the Crown Commissioners. On reading the transcript of evidence it looks to me as though the whole business of the Crown Commissioners and the way in which they run their affairs ought to be inquired into. The employment of part-time gentlemen in private practice as Crown Commissioners is a very arguable proposition. It would be very much better to have a complete review.
We must wait for the White Paper to see what is to be done about the civil servants. I am very unhappy, not that action has been taken against them—a strong Minister would have taken action a long time before—but that it should be done after this tribunal and they should be left feeling they have a real grouse about the way in which it has been held.
This matter throws up serious issues but there have been many misunderstandings, particularly in the Press. Many newspapers, if not all, have been quite off the beam because they relied on the rather partial Report rather than reading, as perhaps they could not be expected to read, the whole transcript of evidence. This matter really throws up the way in which a Department of State has muddled, delayed and messed about over a very long period through lack of adequate direction. I believe that the moral of this case is not for an individual Minister, nor for civil servants, but for the whole of this Government. Repeatedly, and again today, they have been driven from behind; and they have been unable to put forward a coherent, effective policy under which civil servants could know how to do their job.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Hurd: The House is apt to find the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) rather exhausting and he has given us another knockabout turn this afternoon. I will


be briefer, in the circumstances, than I intended to be. It has taken this day's debate to establish principles which should not have been in doubt since the day the Conservative Government took office. They should have been perfectly well understood by civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture and elsewhere.
I think that all of us who have felt unhappy about the course of events in this Crichel Down case were reassured by what the Minister of Agriculture told us this afternoon, particularly on three main points. The first was that the State should not continue to own or manage any agricultural land which is suitable for sale. Secondly, where agricultural land has been compulsorily acquired by the Air Ministry, the War Office, or any other Department which no longer requires it for the purpose for which it was acquired, it should then be sold and the previous owners should have an early opportunity of resuming their property at a valuation set by the district valuer. That to me, and I think to most of my colleagues, is just good plain common sense and it is just plain justice.
The right hon. Member for Belper suggested that such land, which had been used by the Air Ministry for a bombing range, or by some other defence Department, could not be handed back to the original owner or occupier because it was in a bad condition. In practice. it very often happens that land can be handed back and does not need any intermediary treatment at the hands of the Agricultural Land Commission. In my part of the country there are thousands of acres of farmland which were de-requisitioned after the War Office or the Air Ministry had had it for five years, or sometimes 10 years, and it was not necessary for that land to go through the hands of the Agricultural Land Commission. We would have had just as much confidence in the grade A farmer doing the job as in the Agricultural Land Commission.
I am cutting out a great deal of what I intended to say, but I think I should say this. From the welter of criticism of the Minister of Agriculture and his Department three points stand out. The first is that the Minister himself called for this independent inquiry into the procedure that was adopted in the Crichel Down case after the Air Ministry had

decided it no longer wanted the land. Sir Andrew Clark, who is well versed in sifting evidence, reached certain decided conclusions. Some hon. Members may think they were almost too decided, with one particular bias, but Sir Andrew has a clear mind and has given us his decided conclusions.
Having received that Report, the Minister was unwise to allow himself to be persuaded that the civil servants implicated deserved no further censure than the Report contained. That worried us a great deal when we heard the statement of the Minister in this House on 15th June. I wonder who persuaded the Minister that discipline should not be exercised on the civil servants who had been found at fault?
The Minister is a kind-hearted man, but I think this was carrying his Ministerial responsibility really too far. I think we should be told whether the Minister was over-persuaded and, if so, on what grounds that pressure was exerted on him. We have heard of the offer of the Minister's resignation this afternoon. If there are to be resignations we want to be quite sure where the cap fits.
Secondly, it is abundantly clear to those who have read all the evidence and the minutes that, as the right hon. Member for Belper said, have been available to hon. Members in the Library for the last few days, that the Minister has been badly served. It may be said with his knowledge of public affairs he ought to have realised more fully the limitations of those who serve him. Or is this a duty which falls primarily on the Permanent Secretary to the Department? In this case the Permanent Secretary was comparatively newly appointed.
Thirdly, I think it must be abundantly clear that in recent years there has been no one in the Ministry of Agriculture, who, while this case developed, has ever had a practical grasp of the problems involved, or who has been asked to apply such a grasp to them.
There were the men in the field, the assistant Agricultural Land Commissioners, and the staff of the Agricultural Land Commission, and so on. But lit appears to me—and I have read all the documents—that inside the Ministry itself there was no one who said, "Hey! What is all this about? It is no longer


war-time. Individuals have some rights again, even if the Agricultural Commission has other ideas."
I recall that for some years, during the last war, it was my privilege to serve under the present Lord Hudson in the Ministry of Agriculture. My work lay in the office of the Chief Agricultural Adviser, Sir William Gavin, who was brought into the Ministry from outside by Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, who is well known to hon. Members of this House. Sir William Gavin continued to serve under Lord Hudson, and, indeed, also under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) for at least two years I think it was, after the war.
The main function of Sir William Gavin was to guide and advise the Ministry, not only at the top level—he had access to the Permanent Secretary and the Minister—but also to stop rash things, ill-considered things and unbalanced things from being done at a lower level. Indeed, papers came through his office on the way up to the Permanent Secretary and to the Minister. I am fairly certain that the right hon. Member for Don Valley would confirm my impression that on major matters of policy he would want to see what view Sir William Gavin had expressed, and Sir William was not a man who would look merely at the top page on the file.
I think that the procedure of having a Chief Agricultural Adviser brought in from outside, and independent of the regular civil servants, saved the Ministry of Agriculture in those days from making mistakes. It is, of course, true that conditions in 1949 and 1950, when this Crichel Down case began to develop—when the first steps were taken—were very much conditions of war-time shortages. Now, when the final stage is reached in 1953 and 1954, and when we have a much greater abundance of food—in part produced at home and in part produced abroad—the necessity for the strict control of the use of land is no longer so insistent as in 1949 and 1950. I doubt—

Mr. S. N. Evans: How does the hon. Member justify that remark when it is applied to an industry that is now taking—still taking—£200 million a

year out of the pockets of the taxpayers by way of subsidy?

Mr. Hurd: I will repeat what I said, because perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not get the purport of my remark. I said that conditions are such today—with the more ample supply of food being produced at home and coming in from abroad, which, thanks to our better circumstances, we are able to buy in the world—that it is no longer necessary to exercise this close control over the use of land which was considered necessary during the war, and, indeed, up to 1949 and 1950. That is what I said, and I think that a good many of the hon. Friends of the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) would agree with me. You cannot continue to inflict rigid control—I do not think that the hon. Member for Wednesbury would wish to do so—on any industry through Whitehall indefinitely when conditions become much easier than they were.
I am cutting out a good deal of what I had intended to say, but I wish to say this. My right hon. Friend has been grappling with many major problems and has reached many important decisions in recent months. He and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food have done well to bring freedom into the food markets while safeguarding home agricultural production. The country will appreciate that more as time goes on, and so will some of my hon. Friends on these benches.

Hon. Members: Another splinter group.

Mr. Osborne: And on the opposite benches, too.

Mr. Hurd: It has been my privilege to work closely with my right hon. Friend since I came into this House. I did not know him before, and I have learned to respect his sound judgment and to know that nothing will deflect him from doing what he considers to be the right and proper thing to do. No amount of political pressure in this Crichel Down case, or in any other case that I know of, has deflected him from his own impartial view.
It is sheer nonsense for the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) to say that Commander Marten used undue


and improper political pressure. Commander Marten wrote to his Member of Parliament. I have read the letters, and I think that they were very restrained letters. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch) was very polite and patient in his dealings with the Ministry of Agriculture, because he was not getting what he wanted.
It is perfectly normal and right that an individual, who felt that he had a grievance, should pursue his case through his Member of Parliament up to the Minister. That is how democracy works. We do not have pressure groups on our side of the House—

Mr. A. C. Manuel: Get out of it! Has the 1922 Committee been wound up?

Mr. Hurd: I believe that my right hon. Friend has served the country well since 1951, when he became Minister of Agriculture. He has served the agricultural community well, and he has served the public well. I am sorry, having reached these decisions in policy—particularly those affecting the administration of his Department—that he has felt that he must offer his resignation to the Prime Minister. I am sorry that the Prime Minister has felt bound to submit that resignation to Her Majesty the Queen. I should like to have seen—dearly liked to have seen—my right hon. Friend finish his job at the Ministry of Agriculture. Is it too late for that decision to be reconsidered?
I know that my right hon. Friend carries the personal good will of all of us in this House. I believe that the best interests of the country will be served, now that these major decisions of policy have been taken by the Cabinet, if my right hon. Friend remains at the Ministry of Agriculture for some time, to complete the task which he started, and which he has carried out so well hitherto.

5.39 p.m.

Sir Richard Acland: I was unusually interested when the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd) said that there were no pressure groups on his side of the House. I hope, therefore, that negotiations with Egypt will be quickly concluded. From the point of view of this debate, I was even more interested when the hon. Member was asking questions about the quixotry—I think that

would be the correct way of describing it—of the action of the Minister in casting the shelter of his probity around the alleged evil-doers in the Civil Service. But I would like to begin what I have to say at the beginning, and make the different points in due time, and I will come back to that point of his in its proper place in what I wish to say.
I have been absorbedly interested in this whole matter since the Report was published, partly because I have had a certain amount of personal experience of this kind of thing. I have been a very large landowner in my own right; the National Trust has been so generous as to allow me, entirely informally, to have some insight into the land management problems which they have found on two of their large estates. And, of course, during the period of the second Labour Government, I was the Second Church Estates Commissioner—in fact, I was one of the head men—administering, I think, a great deal more land than is administered by the Commissioners of Crown Lands or by the Agricultural Land Commission.
On top of that, I have been fascinated by the public reaction to the Report. Since its publication, I believe that it has done great damage because of the sustained onslaught which has been released upon the public service, whose servants have been castigated in all the journals of middle-class and upper-class opinion as incorruptible tyrants, secretive conspirators, and discourteous nonentities, contemptuous alike of the rights of individuals and of the real public interest. I believe that great damage has been created by the resulting ill-odour which has been spread upon every organ of public control, especially in relation to land.
I have been fascinated too by the author of the Report. It has been mentioned before that he was a Conservative candidate. He was a very remarkable Conservative candidate. I believe that it was said locally at the time that he was the only man who could perform the miracle of losing Barnet for the Conservative Party. I am sorry that the Barnet Press was short of newsprint at the time, because we have had preserved for us relatively few of the gems of wisdom


which fell from him. Fortunately, however, one or two are available.
For example, he said on 16th June, in his campaign, that
…the people want freedom, not nationalisation with State control which is the slippery slope to slavery.
On the same day he said:
The Conservatives want to see every man living happily with his family, with time to enjoy his leisure.
"This," said the brigadier, "is impossible under nationalisation." I appreciate that these are legitimate views. I should be as ready as any democrat to fight to the death to defend the eminent Q.C.'s right to hold them, but when a man believes that a postman is a slave or that a B.O.A.C. pilot cannot enjoy his leisure, or that the Governor of the Bank of England—who, after all, is a worker in a nationalised industry—finds it impossible to live happily with his family, I only say that such a man is not exactly the man that I should have chosen to conduct this one-man court of inquiry on an issue involving the alleged malpractices of Government servants.
It may be said from the other side of the House that I hold some opposite and equally curious views about nationalisation, but nobody on that side—and, amazing as it may seem, nobody on this side—would appoint me to sit as a one-man court in judgment on issues involving the behaviour of Labour Party Ministers and directors of large privately-owned companies.
I come to some of the issues in the Report. Here is a point which has not been drawn to the public notice. Up to June of 1951 the Alington Estate had no serious objection to the proposal that the Crichel Down area should be retained by the Land Commissioners as one unit equipped as a farm and put up for public tender. That is clear from paragraph 15 of the Report, which says that in that month the Crichel Estate made an agreement to supply water for the purpose. I think that that evidence is conclusive, judging from my own experience.
Hon. Members will perhaps know the beautiful view which one gets northwards from the top of Dunkery Beacon. Bang in the middle of that view there were in the 1930s five fields of glebe

which certain authorities, all of them now passed to their retirement or to eternal rest, wished to exploit and to sell off in building lots, each building lot to have a house upon it incongruous with its surroundings and with its neighbour. The only thing which they needed to carry this fell design into execution was water, and the only place from which they could get water was from me; and I would not give them any. I thought that their purpose was socially immoral.
It is axiomatic that no landlord, no estate, will give water for a purpose which is regarded as socially immoral. I do not want to exaggerate the point too much but, since the publication of the Report, we have had a lot of talk about the immorality of conspiratorial robber bureaucrats, and it is right to put it on record that at least in June, 1951, the Alington Estate had no serious moral objection to this proposal.
I now come to what I believe to be the real issue which public men ought to consider. It is not the issue raised by the hon. Member for Newbury, who now seems to have disappeared. Ever since the Report has been published we have bad the middle-class Press asking the great question: Should we allow our noble but misguided Minister quixotically to take upon himself a purely technical responsibility for the crimes of his civil servants and thereby to shield them with his virtue from the dismissal which ought to be their just reward?
That is the question which the middle-class Press has asked the House to examine today. I think that we must examine a quite different question in the realm of social psychology. It is: How can it happen that a trained Q.C., a leader of Chancery, can release a pent-up organism of vilification and abuse over civil servants. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is what he has done, first on his own behalf, and then with the reinforcement of his like-minded friends and colleagues, when all the time the facts make it as clear as the nose on my face that the effective cause of the whole business—and I am sorry to say this after the Minister's concluding phrases, but one must—has been the direct positive and personal incompetence of three menthe Minister, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary here and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in another place.
I set out to prove that that is the issue which we need to consider. I start from the moment when the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch) sent his first letter of complaint on 13th June. Speaking from some experience of being among the head men in an institution managing large areas of land, I ask myself what does such a man do when he receives a complaint. It is a matter of ordinary complaints drill like sloping arms for a private in the Army. One informs the members of one's own staff of the complaint which has been received and one asks far a report; and one does that at once. But that was not done. Three weeks and four days after the hon. Member's letter had been received, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary wrote as follows:
I am still unable to give you a considered answer because the inquiries that I am having to make are taking rather longer than I expected.
"Are taking longer." In fact, they had not started, because the Minister had not started them. On that date he had not written the first letter asking for a report. I want to know how it happens that a lynx-eyed Q.C. going through the facts in this document can pass over without a word a letter from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary which came as near to lying as a man can get without actually lying.
That is what it was. He said, in effect, "Our inquiries are taking longer than I had expected," when they had not even started. This is the relevant problem: if he had got off his request for a report in the normal time, which any one in his position ought to be able to do, his request for a report would have reached that very sensible fellow Mr. Lofthouse, before he went on leave, and therefore we should never have had a report drawn up by the underling Brown, who no doubt did his best but who, as I am sure he himself would agree, found that the job was too big for him. It it had reached the very practical-minded Mr. Lofthouse., a great deal of what followed might not have taken place. I want to know whether this four weeks' delay and this "I-cannot-let-you-know-because-the-inquiries-are-taking-longer"—whether all this is part of the courtesy and care with which, the eminent Q.C. found, the Ministers always treated Commander Marten.

Mr. Percy Daises: On a point of order. My hon. Friend has made a direct accusation against the Joint Parliamentary Secretary—that he wilfully misled an hon. Member by stating that he was having inquiries made when, according to my hon. Friend, no such inquiries were being made. Surely it is up to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary either to refute that or to give the House an explanation.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is no point of order in that.

Mr. Charles Pannell: Further to that point of order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is no point of order. I heard exactly what was said. The hon. Baronet did not accuse anybody of being a liar; he said that some document was lying.

Mr. Pannell: My hon. Friend has made the direct allegation that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, now sitting on the Front Bench, came as near to mendacity as is possible. I submit to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that at a time when we are trying to remedy grievances—which was the original intention of the House—it behoves the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to give a reply now.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have already said that that is not a point of order. I wish hon. Member would not insist on putting as points of order what I know in advance will not be points of order.

Sir R. Acland: I hope that my hon. Friends will appreciate that these are quite small offences on the Minister's part compared with those to which I am coming.
I now come to the charge—this is the sad complaint from our defeated Tory candidate Q.C.—that the Ministers were not told the truth about compulsory acquisition. Whose fault is that? From my experience on the Church Commission, I say that it is the fault of Ministers. It is, again, a question of going through the recognised motions of complaints drill. The drill is this: you get a complaint, you look at it, you pass the complaint to your staff and ask for a report. Then what? You get the report and you look at the complaint vis-à-vis the report and you look at these two for the purpose of spotting whether there are any contradictions on fact. If you find any


contradiction on fact, you write a polite letter to the complainant and an almighty rocket to your own Department asking for 101 per cent. confirmation of the point on which there is contradiction. If the head men do not do that piece of elementary administrative work, it is no use blaming the underlings because the Ministers did not know.
In all this business, through all these sorry months, there have been only three men who have ever had simultaneously and steadily before them the original letters from Commander Marten and from the hon. Member for Dorset, North and Mr. Smith's report based on Brown's inquiry—and those three men have been the Minister, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary here and Lord Carrington.
Oh, Lord Carrington! His part is really astounding, and the way in which Andrew Clark treats him is absolutely amazing. I asked a Question for written answer and I therefore know that Lord Carrington, when asked to go down and to settle this matter of Commander Marten's complaint, had in his hands Commander Marten's letter of 13th June and the letter from Mr. Smith based on Brown's report. He also knew from the Minister that Commander Marten, on 7th August, had written offering, if the total area were not to be divided, to purchase the whole.
When Lord Carrington went down to Crichel Down in November the issue which he had to decide, therefore, had nothing whatever to do with whether the total Crichel Down area was to be divided or not. The great issue which Lord Carrington had to decide was this: whether Crichel Down be divided or undivided, do we give any consideration or any special consideration to Commander Marten's desire to become the purchaser or the tenant of the part or the whole as the case may be? I am sure that Commander Marten would be the first to agree with me, and that the hon. Member for Dorset, North will agree with me, when I say that that was the issue which Lord Carrington had to decide.
In those circumstances, what does Lord Carrington do? He goes down there. He does not notice the contradiction about the way in which the land was acquired and therefore asks no question

about that. He does not see Commander Marten. He does not look at the adjoining land. He does not consider whether any of the other tenants are good tenants or bad tenants. In short, he makes every single one of the mistakes alleged to have been made by the underling Brown. And what a difference in the report! Two-and-a-half pages of vilification, ridicule and contempt are poured out upon this little man, this newcomer to the Service. Mr. Brown, and upon those who instructed him, for making exactly the same mistakes whereas the Q.C. speaks of Lord Carrington only in a single paragraph of nine lines, in the course of which I find words to this effect:
He did not visit any of the adjoining owners for some reason which I did not appreciate.
I wonder why this impartial, defeated, Tory brigadier did not see fit to ask him.

Mr. Philip Bell: The hon. Member must read the paragraph. It says that Lord Carrington seems to have thought that
it would have been improper for him to do so.
It does not say that the learned gentleman in charge of the inquiry had no clue as to the reason, but that apparently Lord Carrington thought it would have been improper.

Sir R. Acland: If Lord Carrington had been a junior Civil Servant instead of a Tory Minister, this impartial Q.C. would have chased him up hill and down dale as to why—[Interruption.] I have many more points to make, and some of them are going to be even more provocative—

Mr. John Peyton: On a point of order. How far is it in order for the hon. Baronet to continue levelling these serious charges—

Mr. Paget: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Peyton: —against the integrity of an eminent man who was appointed to carry out this inquiry, and, as far as my information goes, did so in an impartial manner?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If I hear anything that I think is out of order, I shall stop the hon. Member.

Sir R. Acland: I now turn to the report which Lord Carrington made. He was


sent down to determine the issue between Commander Marten and the Minister. Will anybody believe that he does not mention this issue in his report at all, beyond saying—"The moral issue, of course, remains"? That is all he says about it, and then he turns to make some observations on the question whether the property should be divided or not. That is supposed to be a Ministerial report.
I think it is a bit hard that Sir Andrew Clark cannot answer me. I do not mean that it is hard on him; I mean that it is hard on me. I should like him to be here to answer, and therefore I will say this. If Sir Andrew Clark will come into a public place where I may ask him questions, and will there answer the questions which I will ask him, I will there repeat verbally or in writing that I charge him that, in making this Report, either he was inhibited by his political preconceptions, or he was not competent. And one of the first questions I want to ask him is, how can we explain the fact that, in a report which condemns civil servants with an almost loving ferocity, he has not seen fit to write one word on the fact that Lord Carrington, sent down to settle Commander Marten's complaint, turns in a report which does not deal with the complaint in any way, except to say that the moral issue remains? I find myself baffled.
I am very sorry that, for the purpose of making my next point and substantiating my whole outlook upon this Report, it is necessary for me to make certain criticisms of the Minister, whose speech seemed to me to be entirely inconsistent with the resignation which came at the end of it unless that end were a response to various pressure groups which we are told have been dissolved. I come now to the transcript of evidence, and on page 45 I find that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent), was answering and said:
…you must understand that after September when the original draft was submitted to me to send to Mr. Crouch on behalf of Commander Marten, I then submitted it to my Minister and ceased to be then in charge of the main stream of the business. It was then passing direct to my Minister…
I quote that in order that we may see that in September the Minister was taking a personal responsibility for this correspondence. At that time, that is, in September, the Minister had already been

a quarter of a year in arrears in replying to the letter from the hon. Member. Two months later, Lord Carrington went down, and, after Lord Carrington's visit, another three months went by before we come to February, the final answer to the hon. Member being sent in March. I am now talking about the quarter of a year between Lord Carrington's visit and a certain meeting which I will describe and which took place in February. During that quarter of a year, no step was taken by any Minister to make any further inquiry, to get any more information, to hold any meetings or to have any consultations. Nothing was done, and the letter from the hon. Member still remained unanswered. I suppose this again is an example of the "courtesy and care" which the eminent Q.C. has found always to have been shown by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary in their dealings with Commander Marten.
Now we come to 17th February, when the Minister, with Commander Marten's unanswered complaint still on his desk, held a very carefully prepared meeting with Sir Frederick Burrows, chairman of the Agricultural Land Commission. Many civil servants took part in the work which led up to that meeting, and many civil servants took part in the work which followed from it. Some, when their records are picked over with a fine tooth comb, may be found to have erred this way or that, and some of them did. At this crucial moment on 17th February, when the fate of Crichel Down was being decided, there was only one man who both knew that there was an unanswered complaint from a Member of Parliament about Commander Marten on the file and had the duty to answer it; and that man was the Minister. No civil servant both knew of the complaint and had any duty to deal with it at all.
What did the Minister do on that occasion? There he sat in his capacity as buyer and seller of the land, deciding in that moment what was to happen to it. By his positive act of selling it or agreeing that it should be sold to Crown Land, he decided that it should not be sold to Commander Marten. By his neglect—gross neglect, surely—[Interruption.] If he knew about the unanswered plea from Commander Marten to be allowed to have some interest in his land, and if he


knew that he was passing over the land into the hands of an organisation which had no knowledge whatever of Commander Marten's standing in this matter, I would have thought that the minimum obligation placed upon the Minister at that moment of decision was to make a firm minute and to see that it passed downwards to all the relevant officers of Crown Lands, and thus to ensure and see to it that Commander Marten got a full and fair opportunity of tendering for the tenancy of this land, which the Minister had already decided not to sell him. The Minister did not take that step. What is there left, in the light of all that, of all the talk we have had about a "conspiratorial network of civil servants" who had conspired to deprive Commander Marten of his father-in-law's property?
I want to pass back now to my original question, which is the interesting question in social psychology. How does it happen that this eminent Q.C., and, following him, practically the whole of the middle classes, have gone off into whoops of joy and in full cry are in pursuit of the civil servants? It has been a psychological phenomenon, as anyone will agree who looks at the matter objectively. It deserves a social and psychological explanation, which I will now offer.
Most hon. Members of this House, and most of the hon. ladies and gentlemen outside this House who read, and for whose benefit are written, "The Times," the "Daily Telegraph" and the "Economist," are in their 50's or 60's. They were little boys and girls of five or 10 in their nurseries in middle-class homes in the concluding years of the reign of Queen Victoria or in the first years of the reign of King Edward VII. During those years, it was a veritable heaven on earth to be a member of the British middle classes. My father, having little more than the salary of a Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the War Office, when I was a boy of four, employed a nanny, a housemaid, a parlourmaid and a cook. Britain was top nation of the world; and the middle classes had five million families living in squalor and longing for the chance of serving the middle classes on almost no wages at all.
All that has passed away. Britain is no longer top nation: not financially, not industrially, not militarily, Meanwhile, thank God, we have not five million families living in squalor. Therefore, for inexorable reasons which cannot be reversed, the glorious, spacious liberties which were enjoyed in the British middle classes when hon. Gentlemen on the Government benches were little boys, in middle-class nurseries and were laying down the basic, principal suppositions of their lives, have inexorably slipped away.
Now I would quote on this subject from a book by Dr. Norman Maier, called "Psychology in Industry":
Instead of seeking causes, however, when things go wrong, we usually blame someone, and therefore, sometimes unconsciously, attempt to protect ourselves from criticism for perhaps having helped to bring about the undesirable results.
That is how it is with the readers and writers of the articles in the "Daily Telegraph," "The Times" and the "Economist." They cannot bear the inexorable facts which will not allow the British middle classes to have the same spacious liberties as they used to enjoy. They have to blame someone; and whom do they blame? The civil servants. That is the explanation of the political blindness shown by the eminent Tory Q.C. and brigadier who was responsible for this Report. That is why the publication of this Report has been followed by a pent-up outburst of vilification and abuse against civil servants.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Bucks, South): The hon. Baronet's explanation is very interesting in relation to the political blindness of Sir Andrew Clark, but there is a rather simpler explanation. The terms of reference of the inquiry specifically excluded:
…all questions of governmental policy and. in particular, any question of whether preferential treatment should have been given to any applicant on the ground of previous ownership or occupation of the land.

Sir R. Acland: The last words of the terms of reference of course excluded Sir Andrew Clark from considering whether Government policy on "sell land" or "not sell land" was right or wrong, but they cannot exclude from him the duty of inquiring what part in the events leading up to the decision on Crichel Down was played by the direct personal incompetence of Conservative Ministers.
The Civil Service have taken a much greater part in the activities of the community in the last three decades. We claim great credit for it, on this side of the House, but hon. Members on the Government benches have taken their share of credit for what is happening. An increase in the duties and responsibilities of an organised community is a common purpose among all parties. That, of course, has involved an enormous increase in the duties and responsibilities of the Civil Service. Though civil servants are not perfect, yet amongst them, in the Post Office, the employment exchanges, the Public Assistance Board, the Ministry of Pensions, the hospitals, and wherever else we find them, I should have thought that in the last 20 years there had been an enormous increase in the willingness and friendliness of civil servants to treat the public as human individuals and pay proper attention to them.
I think we have everywhere got away from the idea of the robot and the steamroller riding rough-shod over the claims of the individual. The amount of consideration shown for the individual by civil servants is far greater than the consideration shown by the minions of private enterprise when they have the whip hand. Of course, if the minions of private enterprise want to sell me something they are polite even to the point of obsequiousness, but when any representative, any minion, of private enterprise has the whip hand—

Mr. Osborne: What about the water?

Sir R. Acland: Certainly, I was right about that, and I will take any criticism. But I would point out that, in this whole sorry story of Crichel Down, there is one man more than all others who is resolute to bulldoze his own opinions through, no matter what it may mean to anyone else, and he is not a civil servant at all but an estate agent, a typical product of private enterprise. When hon. Members opposite consider the ways in which individuals may have their rights ridden over by civil servants, have they forgotten that cottage tenants on scores of privately-owned estates, big and small, are every day and every year living under the risk of being pushed around by the little local Mr. Thompsons, and that they have no power to complain to anyone? The middle classes do not see that. They

smell blood, and they are all out to curb the power of civil servants and to hand back land to nominees and the owners of big private estates.
I will conclude with just one little event of recent weeks which passed almost unnoticed. It is highly relevant to this argument of whether there is greater danger from public land being in the hands of civil servants or whether there is greater danger from leaving it in the hands of private ownership. It was reported in "The Times" of 23rd June, and it said:
The Buckinghamshire village of Chenies, with its surrounding farms and woodlands…the buyers were Metropolitan Railway Country Estates, Limited, of London. Sir Bernard Docker is chairman…they have been responsible for much building development. A spokesman of the company said that opposition from the planning authority was expected, but we feel in due course they will have to admit that a considerable area in the Green Belt will have to be developed.'
That is what private enterprise can do if it is not restrained by public servants, men as disinterested and conscientious as Mr. Hole and Mr. Lofthouse, and some of the others who have been pilloried in this Report.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. Robert Crouch: I consider that this is the most important debate we have had in this House on home affairs for a very long time. The debate is on Crichel Down, but the principles involved go very much wider. They affect every man and woman in the country. Since the Report was issued, I have received hundreds of letters from all over the country encouraging me to fight this matter to the bitter end, and this I intend to do. Many battles have been fought in the past against oppressors and have been won. Charles I lost his head for no less than this. Today it is the battle against the bureaucrats, who must also be beaten. I feel that I must say a word about Mr. Tozer. He is a good farmer, and he came out of the inquiry, as he went into it, unblemished. In my opinion, he has been the victim of circumstances.
I wish to refer to one or two things said by the Minister in his opening speech. One thing dealt with in paragraph 17 of the Report is the offer made by Captain David Taylor of £2,000. I was never able to understand why, after an expenditure of £34,000, £2,100 was considered a


better offer than £2,000 for just the bare land. I congratulate my right hon. Friend upon the way in which he apologised to those men who were promised an opportunity to tender for this land, but who, owing to the neglect and other things going on in the Department, never had the opportunity to do so.
I welcome the statement made by my right hon. Friend regarding the sale of land in the future. I hope that an opportunity will be given to Commander and Mrs. Marten, together with the others, to purchase this land. It is sheer nonsense for anyone to suggest that the land could not have been sold because of a tenancy agreement. I suggest that 99·9 per cent. of all property sold in this country is sold subject to a tenancy agreement. I have never been able to understand why this piece of land could not have been sold subject to a tenancy agreement.
I now wish to deal with the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), which made no contribution to this issue. I thought that his speech was obviously a Transport House speech suitable for a mass party meeting. He said that political pressure was brought to bear in North Dorset. I wish that I had brought with me one of the hundreds of letters which I have received. Unfortunately, I have not got it with me today, but I think that I can remember what it said fairly well. It came from a gentleman who said how pleased he was that I had fought this case for Commander Marten, and that he, in his capacity as a member of the Dorset County Council, was daily being frustrated by people of this sort who spin not and toil not, but who live entirely on other people's efforts. In a P.S. to his letter he said words to this effect, "It will interest you to know that I am the president of the North Dorset Labour Party, and that thougn I have never agreed with what you have said or done before, I am fully behind you in this matter."
The Hon. Michael Portman, who is the prospective Liberal candidate, said that we should be indebted for having "our Member, Mr. Crouch," insisting on the inquiry. That discounts any suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Belper that there was any political pressure in the matter.
During the Whitsun Recess, I spent practically the whole time going through these papers. I read every letter which had been written that mattered, and the whole of the evidence. It was worth reading, and I thought it my duty as the Member of Parliament for the area in which this took place to do so. I must say that when I came back after the Whitsun Recess, I was very disturbed at the reply I received from the Minister on 15th June. I am fully aware of the responsibility which the Minister has for his Department, but why, after the inquiry which was conducted by an eminent lawyer, my right hon. Friend should tell the House that he did not take such a serious view of the actions of his civil servants as brought out in the Report, I fail to understand.
I was very pleased indeed to hear the Minister say that Mr. Eastwood is going to another Department, although I am not sure that that completely satisfies me. Some of this trouble has been due to the fact that there was a doubt about the power to sell land acquired by the Crown for the defence of the State. If someone had gone to Volume 1 of the Statutes and had turned to Chapter 25, on page 358, he would have found it stated that in the reign of James I the King was given power to hold land taken by his predecessors for the protection of the State and was himself empowered to take land for that purpose. His successors were authorised to do likewise. But when such land was no longer required for the purposes for which it was taken, then it was to be handed back to the previous owners. If only that research had been carried out we should not have had this very sorry story to which we have listened today.
The inquiry has brought to light many serious and disturbing practices— letters written without foundation—

Sir R. Acland: And left unwritten-without foundation.

Mr. Crouch: —and deliberate lies, being told about honest and upright men Let me refer to two instances.
It was said in a letter that Commander Marten would be a most unsuitable tenant on account of his behaviour and the way he had blazoned the whole matter in the Press. It was admitted


under cross-examination that it was untrue, and that not one word of it had appeared in the Press until more than a month after this letter had been written. Is this man, the writer, fit to continue in his present post? Who will believe anything he may say in the future? The other instance appears in paragraph 94 of the Report. It there says that a letter written on 20th September, 1953, commenced:
'Here with a long tale of woe from one Commander Marten' and going on to say that it seemed trouble was going to be stirred up.
Furthermore, it states:
…that the Agricultural Committee had always taken the view that the land owners concerned had neither the will nor the ability to farm the land and that they held this view strongly.
The letter was written by Mr. Trumper, liaison officer to the Minister at Exeter. He did not appear to give any evidence.

Mr. C. N. Thornton-Kemsley: I do not wish to interrupt, but, in fairness, I think that it should be said that Mr. Trumper, whom I know, did not give evidence because he was not invited to do so neither, I understand, did he know that any inquiry was in progress.

Mr. Crouch: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend.
It seems that something again went wrong. There is still something wrong about this letter. I know that the opinion of the Dorset A.E.C. was never sought, and since the Report has been issued that Agricultural Executive Committee has written to the Minister requesting that Mr. Trumper should go before it and explain his conduct. All that has happened so far is that the Minister has acknowledged receipt of the letter. It so happens that I have known the chairman of the A.E.C., Mr. Gifford, all my life. He is an honourable man. In one letter Mr. Thomson said of him:
Gifford is one of our tenants, I can square him.
I would like to meet the man who could square Humphrey Gifford.
The Minister no doubt was badly advised in some ways—information was kept from him—but why he did not probe more deeply into it, I do not know. The Committee in Dorchester will not rest until this matter has been cleared up.
Another disturbing fact brought to light is that the Commission for Crown Lands never meets. Occasionally the permanent Commissioner may contact the Minister of Agriculture. I hope that with a new Commissioner being appointed the Crown Lands will be run very much more efficiently. This is a very lax way of going on. If the Minister is to be responsible surely he should be kept properly in touch with what is happening. We are well aware that there is a big job to do and he cannot possibly go into every detail, but on major matters he should have all the facts. I think that all this wants going into very carefully indeed. Here we have one man, the Permanent Commissioner, responsible for no less than 379,000 acres—a very large area of land.
Over the last 50 years the powers and numbers of civil servants have increased a thousandfold.

Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: Is it in order for an hon. Member to read every word of his speech from a prepared script?

Mr. Speaker: I understood that the hon. Member who was addressing the House was reading extracts from some documents. It is not customary for hon. Members to read speeches. The practice. is deprecated in this House.

Mr. Crouch: Members of the House have some responsibility in regard to the increase, for they have made so many extravagant promises that to carry them out needs an army of civil servants—to make sure that the laws that have been passed are properly carried through. Today we are rapidly approaching the position where, unless we take heed, we shall have more civil servants than we have those who toil to provide the means by which they live. And may I remind the House that the more they grow in number the more their powers increase.
The Civil Service as a whole is a good and honest body but, as in all ranks of society, some members fall below standard. In my opinion, it is not fair to the majority that no disciplinary action is taken against the few. Why should the Civil Service be in a class by itself? Why should not civil servants be subjected to disciplinary measures in the same way as other sections of the community? Members of Her Majesty's Armed Forces are


subject to court-martial and, if found guilty, are fired. Members of the legal, medical and other professional bodies are subject to disciplinary measures and in the case of misconduct are dealt with in the proper way. Why should not the Civil Service form a disciplinary body to deal with the type of person who has been mentioned in this Report?
As the result of war-time restrictions much power was placed in the hands of civil servants. As the result of the return of a Socialist Government after the war these powers were extended by nation-alisation. Care from cradle to the grave encourages the setting up of little commissars in many places. They hide themselves in security, imposing their will on the people who keep them—the hard-pressed community.

Mr. Pannell: On a point of order. You expressed the view, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. Member was reading copious quotations, but we should know the source of these quotations. Can we know where that last passage was quoted from—or is it really the hon. Member's opinion?

Mr. Speaker: When my attention was first called to the matter, I thought that the hon. Member was reading something from the Report. After all, we have a report before us. I can only express the view that, although it is not strictly out of order to read a speech, it is not proper according to the practice of the House.

Mr. Crouch: If we as a nation are to survive, their powers will have to be curtailed—

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: Further to that point of order. Is it more in order for the hon. Member to read the peroration than it is with regard to the rest of his speech?

Mr. Speaker: There is no distinction between exordium and peroration. I find that it frequently happens that speeches which closely follow notes are sometimes shorter, especially if allowed to continue uninterruptedly.

Mr. Crouch: We should be grateful to Commander and Mrs. Marten for the time, money and courage they have spent in fighting bureaucracy. They have lit a torch, they have kindled a fire which will run throughout the country. I know that there are many little Crichels and there

would have been more but for the courage of these two citizens.
This land, acquired by compulsion for war purposes should be put up at public auction so that those who wish to buy it may compete for it. As I have previously said, it would not in any way disturb the present tenant. This land must not be the last to be extorted, but must be the first to be redeemed, and justice should be done to Commander and Mrs. Marten.
Just over 100 years ago a great injustice was done to six Dorset farm workers. They were known as the Tolpuddle martyrs. Tolpuddle is not 15 miles away from Crichel Down. As a result of that crime, a Dorset man gave the whole of his public life to the benefit of the working classes. He was responsible for the introduction of the first Factory Acts. It was he who brought in the first legislation to enable trade unions to be formed. He was in fact the greatest friend of the working classes. He was Lord Ashley, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. For 15 years he sat in this House as the Member for Dorset. His great great-granddaughter is Mrs. Marten.
I regard this Report as a challenge not only to Commander and Mrs. Marten and her friends and supporters who have been behind her in this great battle, but to every freedom-loving man in this country. Millions of men and women are unaware of the freedom which we enjoyed 15 or 20 years ago. Let a message go out from this House tonight that we will cut their bonds and set them free. Let them have for the first time the opportunity of using their talents to the full and enjoying the fruits of their labours. Thus can we be assured that the people of this island home of ours, once the citadel of freedom, can become greater in the future than ever they have been in the past.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Clement Davies: agree with the hon. Member for Dorset. North (Mr. Crouch) that this matter has aroused an interest far beyond North Dorset and Crichel Down. That is because the Government and the civil servants who work for them are interfering today more and more with private citizens. Undoubtedly there is raised here a question of far wider importance than the actual facts of Crichel Down, and it is one which is of constitutional importance.
There is not one of us in this House who does not desire to express sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman—I suppose I should call him the former Minister of Agriculture. We are very sorry that circumstances are such that he has found that the right thing to do is to tender resignation to the Prime Minister. It is always a matter of regret when a Minister finds that he has to take that action.
I should like to bear out what has already been said by the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), that the right hon. Gentleman has probably had a much more difficult task as Minister of Agriculture than almost any one of his predecessors. It was much easier for a Minister of Agriculture to take over at the time war broke out, for at such times we surrender all our rights, the Minister takes full responsibility and nobody is in a position to question his actions.
The right hon. Gentleman who has just resigned had the much more difficult task of following the principles of his party, namely, to release the land from the restrictions and controls that had been put upon it and upon those who owned or worked it, and give it back to them again. The right hon. Gentleman has done that with considerable skill, and I think he deserves not only credit but our praise.
A number of things have happened this afternoon which I do not understand. I do not think that the question whether the agricultural situation is easier or not is relevant to the subject that we have to discuss. I should have thought that whether there is more production in the world at present bears no relation whatever to the obvious need in this country of producing all the food that it is possible to produce. I do not think that can be doubted in any way. The policy which should be adopted to get that production of food is another matter. I realise that there is a very strong difference of opinion on that matter in the House, but I should have thought that today was not the moment to debate that subject. We are debating something entirely different. Moreover, a retiring Minister has been chosen as the instrument of the Government to declare for a new policy or to emphasise a policy already in existence. That, again, I

should have thought, was quite extraordinary and unexpected.
It is as well that we should realise what is the matter which has aroused our interest. Was the matter rightly handled or not? Let us go back and see how it started. It began after the land had been taken over by the Air Ministry as long ago as 1949, when the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was the Minister of Agriculture. Any charge that is made against the present Government about any delay might equally be made against the late Government. The Air Ministry said that they no longer wanted this land, and in the meantime it had largely gone out of cultivation. It was then handed back to the Ministry of Agriculture, who worked it through the Land Commission.
Then came the question what was to be the future of the land, and at once there were two opinions. A local man, the Dorset County Agricultural Officer, probably knowing much more about this land than anybody in London, said, "Those who used to hold this land are very capable, and I should think that the best thing that could be done for production would be to hand it back to those very people." That was the opinion of Mr. Ferris.
The Land Commission took another view. They thought that this would be a great opportunity for an experiment, and they decided that instead of handing the land back to the original owner or to the original tenants who were apparently very good—everyone has nothing but praise for the Hardings, who farmed the greater part of this land—the best thing to do with the 725 acres was to farm them as one unit. Obviously, if it were to be farmed as one unit it would have to be equipped. These facts would have become known locally in a very short while. There was no need to put expensive new buildings upon the land because the Hardings had sufficient buildings. If it had been handed back to them all would have been well. I can well imagine what was happening locally when the news about these new plans became known. There must have been a considerable amount of talk.
That is how the matter first arose. It became quite obvious that the plan to retain the land as one unit was the one which was likely to be carried out. After


that, 13 or 14 farmers put in applications to be given a chance of tendering for the land as tenants. That fact then became general knowledge locally. Then there were all these inquiries and the long delay, and, ultimately, Mr. Tozer was chosen as tenant.
It was then asked how he came to be considered when so many other people had made offers. A Captain Taylor had offered to pay as much as £3 an acre, which was the most Crown Lands could possibly have hoped to get for the land after they had spent £20,000. According to Mr. Thomson, even if Crown Lands had spent as much as £40,000 or £50,000, the land, as land, would not have borne more than £3 an acre. Captain Taylor was prepared to pay that for it unequipped and had offered to equip it out of his own pocket. Then there was Commander Marten, who had also made application and was prepared to buy back his portion, and had been trying to find out whether it could be let to him. He ultimately offered to buy the whole lot.
Thereupon, after letters had passed between Commander Marten and the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch)—who, I dare say, had also received letters from other interested persons—the matter at last came before the Minister, who decided to hold an inquiry. Then a curious thing happened. When the Minister received the Report he repeated, in the House, that the main reason why he instituted this inquiry was because rumours had reached him that there had been a certain amount of bribery or corruption.
That allegation was refuted in Sir Andrew Clark's Report. Incidentally, whatever may be said about him by the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland), Sir Andrew Clark is a very respected Member of the Bar, having the confidence of his colleagues who have had experience of him which the hon. Baronet has not. I do not think that this is the place to make accusations about prejudice, although the hon. Baronet rightly offered to repeat them outside. I shall leave that aspect of the matter there.
At the end of his Report Sir Andrew Clark said:
There was no trace in this case of anything in the nature of bribery, corruption or personal dishonesty.…

If that had been the main purpose of the inquiry I should have expected the Minister to have put it in the forefront of the terms of reference, but if we look at them we find that no reference whatever is made to bribery or corruption.
Sir Andrew Clark was asked
To inquire into the procedure adopted (a) in reaching the decision that land at Crichel Down should be sold to the Commissioners of Crown Lands; (b) in the selection of a tenant by them; and the circumstances in which those decisions were made, but excluding from the inquiry all questions of governmental policy…
and if corruption were the main point I should have expected the Minister to have added the words:
and, in particular, whether there was any bribery or corruption.
I cannot understand how anybody with those terms of reference before him could have directed his attention otherwise than to exactly how it came about that this property was transferred to Crown Lands, and how the eventual tenant came to be selected.
Sir Andrew Clark set out in detail what he found, together with his conclusions. I shall not now refer to his conclusions; I shall follow the example of other hon. Members and refer to the evidence. Before I do that, however, it is as well to mention the White Paper which has been issued only this afternoon. It is the production of three very respected members, or ex-members, of the Civil Service—

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): As far as I know, Sir Harry Pilkington was never a member of the Civil Service.

Mr. Davies: Then I am wrong. At any rate, they are all men for whom we have the very highest respect. One paragraph, which sets out their views, is very significant. They say:
There is no defined set of rules by which the confidence of the public in the administration of Government Departments can be secured and held. Incorruptibility and efficiency are two obvious requirements.
I want to say here and now that not only do we expect incorruptibility and efficiency from our civil servants, but that our experience has been that we invariably get them. Perhaps "invariably" is putting it a little too


high, but it is so general that we can almost regard it as invariable. The Report continues:
In the present case corruption has not been in question inefficiency has. Beyond that it is difficult to particularise. But the present case seems to us to emphasise one further factor which may be less self-evident but which we regard as of the highest importance. In present times the interests of the private citizen are effected to a great extent by the actions of civil servants.
I pause again there to say that that is the important matter which we are really concerned about this afternoon.
It is the more necessary that the civil servant should bear constantly in mind that the citizen has a right to expect, not only that his affairs will be dealt with effectively and expeditiously, but also that his personal feelings, no less than his rights as an individual, will be sympathetically and fairly considered. We think that the admitted shortcomings in this respect are the main cause of such loss of public confidence as has resulted from the present case.
When one reads the evidence which came before Sir Andrew Clark one feels the strength of the statement made in the last sentence of that paragraph. I should think that every hon. Member, on whichever side of the House he sits, would agree with that. There may be differences of opinion on the question whether this land should have been treated as one unit or separate units. I can well imagine my view being different from all others, because I believe in small rather than big units. I think the time is coming when there will be a revolution in our agricultural methods in this country. There will have to be more intensive cultivation, and, therefore, smaller holdings—

Mr. Ellis Smith: Larger.

Mr. Davies: —rather than large holdings. But that is by the way; there can be that difference of opinion. What is so necessary is that the Minister who has to decide should have all the facts before him. What is quite obvious is that the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary or even the Permanent Secretary had not at any time the full facts before them. That is disclosed in this evidence. There is the real defect in the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture, and it is a very serious one.
As I said earlier, 13 or 14 people applied at an early stage and asked whether they could be considered as tenants. The answer sent back to them was, "The position is not

ripe yet, so we can give you no definite decision, but the time will come when you will be considered. The matter will be put up for public tender. It will be published in the public Press, and then you will have your opportunity, and we shall then be able to choose."
What happened? Nothing of that kind ever took place. There was no public tender. There was nothing published in the Press. Mr. Tozer was chosen by Mr. Thomson, the agent for Crown Lands. He made up his mind that Mr. Tozer was going to get it, and he ignored anyone else. At that moment a new man enters, Mr. Middleton, who had been employed to succeed another man whose name I forget and which does not matter. Mr. Middleton finds that 13 or 14 people have put in their applications, and rightly, at once called attention to this.
It ultimately reached the hands of Mr. Eastwood, who was the active trustee in whose power really lay the decision with regard to the Crown Lands, and this is what really disturbs me. I quote from page 17 of Sir Andrew Clark's Report:
On 23rd March, Mr. Eastwood replied and I quote verbatim from this extraordinary letter "—
which are Sir Andrew's own words—
this extraordinary letter: 'I quite appreciate that you have gone too far with Tozer to make it easy to give the land to anybody else and I am not suggesting that we should, in fact, do so. But I think it would be well that you should ask Middleton to send you particulars of all those who have applied for the land and exactly what promises have been made to them. You may then be able to judge whether any of them are likely to have been serious competitors and we can then decide, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture, what if anything we need to do, at least to appear to implement the promises made to them.
What does that mean? It means, "We can decide what letter we can write which will put these people off." It means, "Agree upon a dodge so that they will not think about complaining." This is about as near a thing to fraud as I have seen. [Interruption.] Does the hon. and learned Member want to defend this type of action on the part of a civil servant?

Mr. R. T. Paget: Not in the least. What the right hon. and learned Gentleman said was "fraud." A fraud, I have always understood, is defrauding someone of a right he possesses. I cannot see how any fraud came in here.

Mr. Davies: The word I used or, perhaps, should have used, was "deceit"—writing letters which would hide the truth and deceive people.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Same thing.

Mr. Davies: That is bad enough from Mr. Eastwood. Be it remembered that Mr. Eastwood had been in the Colonial Service for many years. He was new to this, but it does shock me to find that a man who is promoted to this very important position should have that kind of attitude towards the general public.
Then came Mr. Wilcox. It was because Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Eastwood met at a club that this all came out. It was Mr. Wilcox whom Sir Andrew Clark quite obviously thought an unsatisfactory witness. That is not putting it as high as I might. What does Mr. Wilcox do? He is another civil servant, and in the Ministry of Agriculture. He wrote:
It is, of course, a pity that Middleton did not let Thomson have earlier information about the promises given to various farmers on behalf of the A.L.C. that they would be given an opportunity of tendering if it were being let by the Agricultural Land Commission. Clearly, if you buy a property then you are in no way bound by these promises, and I appreciate it may be too late for Thomson to go back on anything he may have arranged provisionally with Tozer, but I am very glad that you asked Thomson to get hold of the list of names from Middleton so that we can consider whether there is anything that could be done with a view at any rate to appear to be implementing any past promises.
It is those letters which shock me. I think they have shocked us all. Those are the facts which should have been brought to the attention of the Minister himself. What is worrying us is the big constitutional question, that all the time greater and greater powers are being handed over to Ministers, and they interfere more and more with private citizens. What is our position? True, Ministers take responsibility, and the right hon. Gentleman has taken the whole burden upon his own shoulders and has now departed and retired honourably. But is he the only one that should suffer? Where are these men?
If a civil servant is carrying out the policy of the Minister and if the Minister knows exactly what the civil servant is doing, then the Minister himself is indeed responsible, and probably solely responsible, because the civil servant is acting

only on his behalf and with his knowledge; but when the Minister does not know what is happening—and there is no Minister, least of all the right hon. Gentleman, who would have approved of such a thing as is suggested in those two letters—when what is done is done without his knowledge and done by trusted civil servants, the Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and the head of the Crown Lands, no wonder we are so disturbed.
That is the main question. How it is to be dealt with I really do not know. We have such a high regard for the civil servants, such faith in them, that this type of thing shakes our confidence. Were it to shake our confidence in the whole Service, that would be entirely wrong, and the whole thing would get out of proportion. It may be that this very debate, and certainly the action of the right hon. Gentleman, will be a warning in all Departments that a high degree of honesty and of true, decent behaviour is expected from every civil servant wherever he may be, so that our confidence may still be unshaken in our great Civil Service and in the Administration.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Walter Elliot: I should not have intervened in the debate except for the fact that for some years I had the honour to hold the position of Minister of Agriculture. I share that honour with the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) and also, if I may say so, with yourself, Mr. Speaker, but your lips are sealed in this matter and you can take no part in this debate, although many thoughts must be passing through your mind.
We have now gone very thoroughly over many of the issues concerned, and I think that we should, if possible, pick out one or two of the more important features. It seems to me that what we are suffering from is the enormous strain and pressure under which both Ministers and civil servants are working at the present time. I do not think the load can continue to be carried without something blowing up at some point or another. We have seen many experiments done on the Comet to see whether a hull which is compressed and expanded, compressed and expanded, compressed and expanded, suffers from metal


fatigue. Even metal is fatigued under constant strain. But consider the strain under which Ministers and civil servants are working; it is a very great strain.
I have had a certain amount of experience of this pressure, but it was nothing like the pressure which is now going on. While it was difficult enough at the time of the right hon. Member for Don Valley, and of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), he did not have the difficulties of a Minister of Agriculture who finds himself in a period when the country is passing from shortages to surpluses. That was the big task which this Minister and the civil servants to carry out—the enormous readjustment of agriculture between those two periods, passing out of a period of shortage, when the cry was, "Anything to eat at almost any cost under almost any circumstances, however uneconomic," into the present circumstances, where we have to balance agriculture against so many of the other of our great capital investment programmes which need to be carried out.
The hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) has pushed this point strongly to our notice on many occasions, and it is true that we are now beginning to have to choose whether the first priority should be given say, to the equipment of the coal mines or to the equipment of agriculture. We are having to choose how far our limited resources should be diverted along one line or along another line. That is the point on which the Minister and the civil servants continually face the difficulty of an agonising choice.
The point which I never could understand about this Crichel Down farm was why the idea was undertaken at all, because to make a farm out of nothing, to build up a farm on a bare hillside. is not only a very expensive business but at the same time is not always very good for food production. I was interested to note what is said in paragraph 102 of the Report:
All the professional estate agents who gave evidence, including Mr. Ingram and Mr. Thomson himself, agreed that the proposal to equip Crichel Down as a self-contained unit was so unattractive financially that they would never have recommended it to a private client; but there was a marked divergence of opinion as to whether it would or would not result in increased production.
It will be seen that it was not even proved that there would be increased production.
The Minister and the civil servants were working on the great problems of the Price Review and the amount of our national effort which should be spent on agriculture—both great issues; and this was, after all, one of the less pressing issues. We all know—at least anyone who has been a Minister knows—that this is a case of "There, but for the grace of God, go I." Some slip on one point at which somebody did not bring some document before you—we have all had it, and everybody in business has had it in the same way. Sometimes you are saved by the skin of your teeth, and sometimes you are not; and this applies both to Ministers and to civil servants.
The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) asked, "Are not the civil servants to suffer?" They are suffering enough in this Report. Undoubtedly disciplinary steps have been taken, and rightly so, but both these disciplinary steps and the mention of the civil servants in the Report are heavy punishments. The Minister has paid forfeit with his political life. I do not believe that he could have carried out those disciplinary steps unless he had been willing to resign when he had carried them through. This was the duty of the man at the top—to clear up the mess and then to say. "My responsibility is also overriding, and with that I go."
My right hon. Friend was right. He could not have taken those steps otherwise, nor could a new man have taken those steps, without an accusation of vengeance of some kind or another or of unfair pressure being brought to bear upon civil servants. I did not like the speech of the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland). I preferred the much more guarded, cautious and, if I may say so, more statesmanlike remarks of the right hon. Member for Belper, who said that mistakes had been made, that these things fall below the high standard expected, but that these mistakes are on the way to being remedied.
On what instance are they being remedied? On the Report. I have helped to write reports and I have been chairman of committees which have produced reports. The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery was chairman of a committee which produced a report which recently received a great deal of criticism in what the hon. Member


for Gravesend would call the middle-class Press. I was chairman of a body which produced a report on Kenya, which received a good deal of condemnation both from the extreme Right and from the extreme Left.
But we have to take the rough with the smooth, and this is the important thing, this is the point on which the Minister is to be congratulated: the Minister set up this inquiry. This report does not weaken our position; it strengthens our position. We have all thought more highly of Dr. Nkrumah in the Gold Coast as a result of his recent inquiry. When there was an accusation against his Ministers or his servants he held an inquiry which revealed certain things which were wrong. But because he had held the inquiry we said to ourselves, "This is not a totalitarian State; this is a State on a model which we know and like and which we understand."
The Minister of Agriculture set up the inquiry and the inquiry was held—whether we like the Report or not. The Summary may not be wholly as accurate as the transcript—that was the important thing. But we also had the transcript. I have worked through it—seven great volumes—and through the file of letters; and I can say to myself, as indeed the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, that I know as much about this matter as, and perhaps more than, any of the people who were handling it at the time.
As long as that can happen, this House is safe and we are safe in our Civil Service. From time to time these rough, raw and odious things have to be done. This rough, raw and odious debate has had to be held. From time to time there has been a note of almost hysterical laughter in the House. I know when the House is not happy in its conscience, when it is not at ease; there is then a note of almost hysteria which enters from time to time.
We are here analysing something which ought no more to be analysed in public than ought the relations between a man and his wife. This is the question of the relations between a Minister and civil servants—the closest, the most intimate and, if possible, the easiest of all relations. They must always remain so; but from time to time something like

this arises and we have to examine these relations. It is the divorce court procedure. I do not like it. It is an unsavoury proceeding, as divorce court proceedings are unsavoury, but if we do not have a safety valve the thing blows up, and if we had not had this safety valve this thing would have blown up.
I believe that this has been a safety valve, that it has been of great service. I believe that we shall forget this matter and shall remember the great achievements of the Minister, of his Parliamentary Secretaries and of the civil servants in carrying through these tremendous alterations which have been carried out—these alterations from scarcity to surplus. Those are the things which will remain and stand out. Above all, in the Minister, we shall remember his courage. It required courage to set up that inquiry and to have that Report. It required courage to come before the House and to make the speech which the Minister made today. That is the cardinal virtue of politics. He has shown it, and for it he deserves our thanks.

7.20 p.m.

Mr. S. N. Evans: I am not going to give the House one of my well-known dissertations on the advantages of being a farmer, but there are one or two aspects of this matter on which I should like to comment very briefly. It seems clear to me that there was an intention on the part of the Minister of Agriculture to make Crichel Down a show place for efficient farming in this part of the country. Once that decision had been taken, I can well understand that those concerned would fight to maintain the opportunity to demonstrate to that part of the country what high-efficiency farming could mean.
I think that this trouble springs more from an excess of zeal than from any real wrong-doing. I think it is true that Mr. Tozer found sanctuary in Mr. Thomson. I can see that the Minister has to go. I think that perhaps his two assistants ought to go with him. I do not accept that this has come about through any lack of opportunity of the political heads of the Ministry to know what was going on. I think that there has been some failure in the hierarchy of the Ministry. Clearly if the Minister has to bear all these responsibilities, he must


lean somewhat heavily on his higher civil servants.
I would have thought that if there is anything to which the House should give attention, arising out of this unhappy business, it is the extent to which the Minister has failed to receive correct advice, not from the Eastwoods and the little Browns, but from the higher servants of his Ministry. From them, of course, should not be exempted the deputy chief secretary. No one could read this Report without misgivings. He was in East Anglia on one occasion when something was taking place. Good gracious, East Anglia is not East Asia. I should have thought that there ought to have been much closer liaison.
I take the view that the chief civil servant in the Ministry is as an adjutant to his colonel. It is his place more than that of anyone else to keep the Minister fully-posted of what is going on. As I have said in this House a good many times, without very much support, I do not think it is a good thing that the three political heads of this Ministry should be farmers. I think that is undesirable. I think that it may have contributed to this unhappy business in some degree. Clearly, the Minister, to some extent, is the victim of his own procrastination. A decision should have been arrived at in this matter long ago.
I want to say something about the political aspects of this matter which are not inconsiderable. If the Ministry had decided that they were going to create in this part of the world a farm which, in the matter of high-efficiency, high-productivity, high-yields, first-class breeds and first-class farming—would be an example, if they were out to create a shop window, as it were, to which the backward members of this somewhat backward industry would be attracted—then I think that would have been something to which I would have subscribed. But I must say that a capital investment of £44 an acre in buildings on land which before the war had been sold for £11 an acre seems to me to be very heavy.
Even so, if that were the intention, I would support it. The problem in this industry is not a handful of misfits and those who are work-shy, but 100,000 honest, decent, hard-working farmers who are hard to teach because they are too

hide-bound to learn. If we could have a living demonstration in the middle of them of what could be done by efficient farming, I would be prepared to spend a lot of money on a project of that kind, and I cannot help but think that was the intention of the Ministry of Agriculture.
In spite of all the evasions—it is not a very pretty story, and one gets the impression occasionally of a word which has not yet been used, "conspiracy"—I am not going to challenge the motives of these people. They were out for something which they thought to be in the national interest. There was excess of zeal. I can see how it came about. Those who think the pre-eminence of their own ideas is synonymous with the national interest [An HON. MEMBER: "Who does not?"]—are quite likely to believe that they are entitled to be absolved from normal standards because the impeccability of their motives is such that the ends they seek must be held to justify the means. That is a doctrine of which we have had some experience in Europe over the last 20 years. It is not a doctrine to which I subscribe. I do not think that they quite understood the enormity of what they were doing. I believe that. I think that here we have excess of zeal rather than something deserving of a more scathing description.
I turn for a minute to aspects of this matter of which we must not lose sight. I do not accept that once the Marten family had sold the land in 1937 they had any prescriptive right to have it back. Would they have wanted it back had the price of land halved? Had this industry, at vast public expense, not become so prosperous, would they have wanted it back? I doubt it. So I do not accept that these people had the right to have it back.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: Is it not the case, not that they had the right to have it back, but, having been offered by the Government in good faith to be given a chance to bid for it, they were cheated out of that chance?

Mr. Evans: Surely, if the object of the Ministry is as I have set out, it was their duty, and the only chance they had to make a success of it, to get a tenant in whom they had complete confidence. Tozer filled the bill. Here they had a man


who was already farming, and they did not have to place this proposed experiment in the hands of someone who was not so happily circumstanced as Mr. Tozer.
Really, there are other aspects. The Minister, in a way, is a victim of the same kind of thing that caused the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) to resign from his party. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is the connection?"] I will connect it. It is important for us all to understand the outstanding development of post-war politics.
We on this side have accepted a mixed economy. We have for many years accepted the necessity for a part publicly-, part privately-owned industry. The Tory Party has accepted the reality and the permanence of the Welfare State, but what it has not accepted is the idea of a mixed economy.

Mr. Osborne: That is not true.

Mr. Evans: The Tory Party cannot have it on a limited liability basis. Hon. Members opposite cannot expect a Tory Minister of Agriculture to act in traditional Tory Minister of Agriculture ways at the expense of the national interest—and that is what is happening here. The acceptance by us of the mixed economy and by the Tory Party of the Welfare State has taken out of the arena two juicy bones about which the boys could always have a fight: it has blunted the sharp edge of political controversy. A consequence of that is the internal tension within the Tory Party.

Major H. Legge-Bourke: The hon. Member has said that I was in the same kind of position as that of the Minister on this issue. I hope he is not suggesting that the main feature of the Egyptian economy has its equivalent in the Ministry of Agriculture, because, as I remember it, the main feature of the Egyptian economy was backsheesh.

Mr. Evans: In this back-seat driving we have had the same thing with this agricultural business as with Suez. It is this tension within the Tory Party which has caused the Minister to go. The original conception of the Ministry of Agriculture that this land should be a

show-piece of agriculture in that part of the world, so that others could see it at close quarters and emulate the efficiency and low costs that this unit could be confidently anticipated to reveal, was a worthy object. The argument has gone on for so long because, apparently, the Minister thought it was a worthy object, and the Parliamentary Secretaries thought so too. It is only at this last stage that the Tory backwoodsmen insist that the Tory Minister of Agriculture should act as Tory Ministers of Agriculture have always acted—that is, to have regard solely to the interests of the land-owning class. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes; it sticks out a mile.
The Minister was right. I wish he had not been so long in making up his mind. I wish he had said 12 months ago, "There has been enough of this controversy. This is what is going to happen. I have decided." I wish that he had then called upon the Cabinet to back him. Had he done that, this matter would have been resolved in the manner that would have best suited the national interests, As it is, it reflects very little credit on the benches opposite that this good man should have been hounded from his post.
On the other hand, none of us can be unaware of the unfortunate exhibition that has been put up by certain civil servants in this connection. If there is one thing that the world envies us, it is our civil servants. From Madagascar to Valparaiso, I have listened—[Laughter.] Yes, I do a lot of travelling—at the taxpayers' expense when I can contrive it. If there is one institution in this country that commands universal respect for its incorruptibility and efficiency, it is the British Civil Service. I am bound to say that in this connection there has been a decline in the high standards that the nation and the world have come to expect.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. John Maclay: The hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans), in his closing remarks, said some things with which I am bound to agree, but I assure him that he has got the principle behind this debate completely wrong if he thinks that it is anything to do with backwoodsmen or the interests of landowners.
The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) is just leaving the Chamber, and in the circumstances I do not blame him. My colleagues and I who sit on this bench as Members of the Liberal-Unionist group in the House believe, as do my hon. and right hon. Friends who also sit on this side, that a very important principle has been involved throughout this whole problem. That is, the straightforward right of the individual to his own property. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not his property."] If we once lose sight of that essential principle, we are giving away almost everything for which this nation has fought and stood in the years gone by.
It is not necessary to go into the details of what has today been a not very pleasant debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) put the whole thing in its proper perspective, but it is necessary to see what has come out of the whole discussion. My main reason for speaking is that it was reported in the Press a short time ago that my Liberal Unionist colleagues and I had asked the Minister to resign. The Minister knows that that is not so

Sir T. Dugdale: indicated assent.

Mr. Maclay: I have reason myself to know that decisions on resignation, whether for health or for any other, reason, are decisions that should be made only by the individual concerned. I do not think that it is right at any time for Members of this House to press Ministers to resign, although they can criticise their policies. It is a pity that the hon. Member for Wednesbury was exerting some deliberate pressures for resignation when he spoke. Ultimately, no one but the Minister himself or the junior Minister knows the various processes of reasoning that go to make up a decision. If policy goes wrong, a Minister may have to resign, but the decision should be left to himself. Possibly his colleagues may talk to him about it—I do not know—but the pressure from this House is nearly always based on the wrong reasons.
There are three things that matter this afternoon. First, the Minister has made it clear that the original owners of the land or their successors will have the chance of buying back the land in the best way they can. That gives great

satisfaction, particularly to those of us who share this bench with me. We realise that the complete handing over of the land for working may not be possible because of the contract already entered into, but it is extremely satisfactory that the position has been established that the original owners or their successors can get their land back.
The second main point is that we have had a clear statement of policy for the future; that is very important indeed. I can understand hon. Members opposite, who have completely different views about how the country should be run, objecting to the statement that was made this afternoon. No Liberal or Conservative can be anything but extremely grateful that the Minister has made clear—

Mr. Manuel: Liberals? What would Lloyd George have said?

Mr. Maclay: Lloyd George, if he were still alive, would be the first person to fight for the proper rights of an individual when he had lost his land through no fault of his own. Let us get this absolutely clear—and I am glad the Minister stressed it: it makes not one whit of difference whether the land was compulsorily or voluntarily acquired.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: Surely, if Lloyd George were alive he would be surprised at a Minister, who had just resigned, stating new policy on behalf of the Government he had just left.

Mr. Maclay: That is a different issue.
On the delicate issue of the status of the Civil Service in relation to the Minister, we have heard from my right hon. Friend an explanation which for one, am absolutely prepared to accept—that the maximum that can be done in a case of this kind has been done. I would deplore direct pressure exerted by the House of Commons resulting in action against any member of the Civil Service. The whole status of the Civil Service would change immediately such a thing started.
In this instance, however, from the moment that civil servants appeared, as it were, in the public dock and had the opportunity to answer for themselves, consequences were inevitable. I think that the less that is said about it now that we have had the Government's view on the unfortunate difficulties that arose


through the Civil Service falling below its usual standard the better it will be.
We have these three things clear. First, we have the assurance that the owner can buy the land back subject to the tenancy agreement; secondly, we have had future policy made clear; and, thirdly, I believe, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), that we have come out of this very delicate situation in relation to the Civil Service as well as can be expected after a very unfortunate episode.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. R. T. Paget: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) has just said that this matter concerns the right of an individual to his own property. That is a statement which surprised me. I thought we were concerned with the right of a gentleman to land which had been farmed when in the possession of his father-in-law, which about 15 years before, as downland, had been scrub land with rabbits running wild on it, for another period was a bombing range, and had then been turned by the Land Commission into good farming land, and now that this good land is claimed by some curious right of heritage. That seems to me to be very great nonsense.
Personally, I have never been a National Liberal but I was brought up a high Tory, and the point of view of a high Tory was that land was never possessed for an individual's enjoyment: it was possessed as a trust for the community. That was certainly the point of view which my father held. Now we are informed that there is to be a new policy, that the national estate is no longer to be used in the service of the community, but what is preferred to the benefit and use for the community is the rights of people who maybe 20 years, 30 years or even half a century ago owned the land.
That seems to me to be a gross retrogression of policy. I can understand National Liberals approving it because their policy, as I have always understood it, has been to prefer the right of the individual to the benefit of the community. I find it difficult to understand Tories approving such a principle, because I should have thought that it ran exactly contrary to every principle which they previously held.

Colonel Ralph Clarke: I should like to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman this question. As a countryman—and he is a countryman—does he believe that to spend £32,000 on re-equipping this farm, when there are buildings on an adjoining farm which would do equally well, is in the interests of the country?

Mr. Paget: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is asking me to anticipate my speech. If he will wait a little that is a point with which I shall deal in no uncertain terms.
May I say that I deeply regret the departure of the Minister. He is one who has been greatly respected on both sides of this House and one who is deeply interested in farming. I do not feel that we shall benefit by an exchange. After all, his is an unhappy Ministry. Let us remember his predecessors as Conservative Ministers of Agriculture. I just recollect a few of them. Here they are: Griffith-Boscawen, Sanders, Guinness, Gilmour, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), Mr. Speaker and Dorman-Smith, one after another of dismal failures, broken not because they were not men of outstanding ability—many of them were—but broken because they were given an impossible task. They were required to carry on an office in the face of a policy which was fundamentally destructive of the industry they were to nurture and that has been the case with every Tory Minister of Agriculture since the betrayal of Peel.
The conflict is, on the one hand, the interests of the countryside which is based upon a stable level of high agricultural production, and, on the other, the interests of industry. Those two are in fundamental conflict. There is a demand for free trade, for a free market and for all that sort of thing. When a Tory Party is the Government it is the industrial power which eventually triumphs and it triumphs at the expense of agriculture. The industrial interests require an agriculture with a far lower level of production than that which we have created for our agricultural system.
It is a policy fundamentally in conflict with the whole idea of the Agriculture Act, 1947, and the following out of that Tory policy has meant the destruction of one unfortunate Minister after another. The only trouble is that the agricultural


Members on the other side of the House seem to be prepared to accept the sacrifice of successive Ministers without realising that it is not the Minister but the policy that is destroying their industry.
Having expressed my personal regrets at the departure of the Minister whom we all respect, I am bound to say that I think he has been right to go. I also think that he was in a considerable degree the architect of his own downfall, and it is on that that I want to say something about Ministerial responsibility. I noted from the Minister's speech his statement that any departure from the principle of Ministerial responsibility involved bringing the Civil Service into public controversy.
What else has his actions done? Ministerial responsibility is a two-way traffic. It involves two profoundly important principles. First, the civil servant must be able to trust his Minister. He must be put in a position where he knows that his Minister will protect him or punish him, but that nobody except the Minister will punish him. If he is to serve properly, the civil servant must know that he has only one man to fear—not all Parliament together, not the Press, not the yells of the crowd, not the 1922 Committee—but one man, and one man alone, the Minister. He must also know that if he does wrong the Minister will be ruthless in punishing him. Ministerial responsibility has this other function: the public must know that the Minister will be ruthless with his servants if they go wrong.
In both of these the Minister broke down. He had no right to shelve his responsibilities over what had been the job of his Department by having a public inquiry. It was a grave mistake, it was undermining the confidence of the entire Civil Service and it ought never to have happened. The Minister can bring in an outsider if he likes, as his servant, but this ought to have been an inquiry by the Minister and by the Minister alone so far as the Civil Service was concerned, from which he could ascertain whether or not, or how, he should discipline the men, his servants, who had gone wrong.
The Minister did not do so. Instead of that, he threw them to the television camera. That was an abdication of his responsibility. Then, upon the other aspect, when the time comes he fails to

discipline them. He has broken the confidence not only of his civil servants, but of the public to whom he is also responsible. He announces that he proposes to take no action and, when there is a yell for blood from the benches opposite, he again abdicates his responsibilities and accepts the appointment of a subcommittee to do his job and to discipline his servants.
That was the point where he ought to have resigned. It was an indignity which no Minister should have suffered. What can be the morale in the Ministry of Agriculture now? I do not envy his successor in a Ministry whose morale has been destroyed to that point. It was observed in the Press recently that after Steven-son's surrender to McCarthy, the only man in the American Army who had any morale left was Private Schine. In the Ministry of Agriculture there will not be even a Private Schine now. That is the first charge I make here.
Now I come to what I regard as the serious aspect of the disclosures here, the outrageous mismanagement of the public estate which has been displayed. Public property differs from private property in this respect, that the question of financial advantage of any particular course is not the sole criterion but it is still the first criterion.
When we have to consider how we use the public estate, the first question to consider within a money economy is how we use it in the manner most profitable to the community in money terms. That is our first consideration, or ought to be, and if we reject the most profitable course then we have to justify our choice. We have to show that there is some other consideration which outweighs the financial disadvantages of the course which we choose.
Let us see what happened here. The first course decided upon was that this land had to be put back into health after having been used as a bombing range. I do not think that anybody will doubt that this was a proper decision. Then, when we come to 1952, the decision at that point is that it is to be equipped as a single holding at a cost of £20,000 to earn £1,400 a year; upon which a Captain Taylor comes along and offers to pay £2,000 a year and equip it himself. That was an offer which in financial terms was worth about £30,000 better than the


intention—£10,000 for the extra £600 a year rent—£20,000 saved by not having to equip.
That offer of Captain Taylor was never even considered or investigated. From the food point of view there might have been a case for rejecting it. We do not know. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) said, there might have been a case for using it as an exhibition farm. We do not know whether Captain Taylor was going to equip this in a more admirable way than the Commissioners. Nobody knows, nobody investigated that offer. It is remarkable, but we still have not heard who Captain Taylor is. We hear all about the grievances of Commander Marten—and, frankly, I am rather sick of them. The chap who I think has a grievance here is Captain Taylor. Why was his offer turned down?
Secondly, if that financial offer was to be turned down, one had to see whether it was financially so much more beneficial. One had to see whether there would be sufficient additional value from the benefits resulting from making it an exhibition farm. There may have been. I do not know. However, if one decides to spend about £34,000 of public money not to earn, but to show other farmers in the neighbourhood how to produce more food, one should at least consider what one wants to exhibit. Not a single agricultural institute was even consulted, their views of what should be exhibited, what should be demonstrated in that district, what should be shown to be the faults in organisation in that district, were never even considered.
The equipment of this farm at this cost was left to the surprising Mr. Thomson, of Sanctuary and Son, to do as he fancied, apparently from what he had seen on other farms, at a maximum commission to himself. Is this really the way to create an exhibition farm?

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I have been surprised and interested to hear both the hon. and learned Gentleman and the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) refer continually to the idea that this might have been used as an exhibition or a model farm. I do not think that it was ever suggested, at least from my reading of the Report. Where

does the hon. and learned Gentleman get that idea?

Mr. Paget: I cannot go through the Report now. That appears in the Report in several places.
My next point is that I am sorry for the unfortunate Mr. Eastwood. I am not sorry that he is being removed. I am extremely sorry for him that he was ever appointed. What on earth was anybody thinking he was doing in appointing to the sole charge of a public estate of 137,000 acres a civil servant whose only experience has been in the tropical department of the Colonial Office? Through a trust which owns a great many farms, I have had experience of land management for many years of my adult life. It is not a simple job. It is not a job that one can do without experience, and it is not a job without importance.
When England led the world and created the great breeds from which the rest of the world still has to draw, it was the time of the great estates, of the ideal agricultural organisation, of landlordism through the proper organisation of the estate, and farming on the best scale practicable. To manage a vast estate of that kind, instead of bringing in somebody like Lord Lonsdale, or the father of the noble Lord the Member for Berwick-on-Tweed (Viscount Lambton), or Lord Balfour of Burleigh, men who have proved capacity to manage and develop an estate and have had the experience, there is brought in an unfortunate civil servant who knew absolutely nothing about it and, of course, Messrs. Sanctuary and Son took him for a ride. They had a mug customer and they treated him as a mug customer.
They kept roughly within the rules. They proceeded to plant upon him a development cost of £34,000 on which they charged the maximum commission for everything, and which he was totally incapable of checking since he knew nothing about it. They then proceeded to foist a claim for dilapidation. To anybody who has had any experience in land management, the idea that where one lets a farm in hand to a new incoming tenant one pays dilapidation must seem as much nonsense as it appears to me. That is what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Eastwood.
I believe that landlordism has become impossible, that the job of the agricultural landlord, through no fault of his


own, has become impossible and that sooner or later the State will have to take over the job. For heaven's sake let the State use competent people to do it. That is one of the first lessons. Do not let us have an inexperienced civil servant in landlordism as a successor to Mr. Eastwood. Let us have somebody who knows something about managing estates.
As regards the new policy, the desperate effect on agriculture of this debate will be the impression that more food production is no longer the objective of the Government. Do not let us be committed to this desperate "throwing to the wolves" declaration of policy of a retiring Minister. Let us make it perfectly clear that land which is owned by the Queen and that land which is owned for the nation must be used for the very best benefit of the nation, that the nation will see to that and that the rights of individuals, whether they be previous owners or not, will only be considered in so far as they do not conflict with the interests of the nation.

8.6 p.m.

Mr. John Morrison: Before I say anything else, I want to say how deeply I regret the happenings of this afternoon, culminating in the Minister saying that he had tendered his resignation. Not only is he a personal friend of mine, but I believe that he is also a personal friend of many hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House and is acknowledged to be a good countryman in the best sense of the word. I am very sorry that this has happened.
live in Wiltshire, not very far from Crichel Down, and since my earliest childhood I have known that area, though not particularly well. I am one of those who are responsible for land ownership and farming on a similar type of land. I believe that it was the hon Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) who said that this country has a Civil Service which is still the envy of the world. I agree with the hon. Member. Long may that continue to be so but, as is apparent from the Report of the inquiry into this matter, there are strong criticisms of individuals in this case.
Ii was quite right that those criticisms should have been made in the interest of individuals, not only in this case but in many others. I hope that the moral and lesson of this difficult day and debate

will be an acknowledgment of the need to investigate the increased powers of the Civil Service and the question of their further jurisdiction. As the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said, it is important that the rights of the individual should be maintained.
I follow the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) in his point that one wonders whether, however distinguished his scholastic career may have been, the best training for a Commissioner of Crown Lands is a period of work in the Home Office and the Colonial Office before taking the job. I do not think it is right, however, to bandy names of civil servants across the Floor of the House, because those concerned are not in a position to answer for themselves. Therefore, I do not intend to follow that subject any further.
Despite the painful outcome of this debate. I believe that the British public and this House owe a debt of gratitude to Commander Marten for his tenacity in bringing this matter forward, as he felt it was his moral right to do. We also owe a great debt of gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Minister in that he saw fit to have a public inquiry. I disagree with the hon. and learned Member for Northampton opposite on this issue. But for the public inquiry this situation would not have been known as fully to the general public as it now is. The Minister has been badly served by his advisers in many respects.
The outstanding point is that the Agricultural Land Commission first took the view that it was necessary to spend what was much too much money on this very light land. The idea was to be an interesting experiment. Unfortunately, it has ended in a very difficult one. I do not believe that it will be in the long-term interest of the Crown Commission, or the heirs of the previous owners—if they are prepared to buy it back, as I understand they are willing—or of Mr. Tozer, the tenant—whom I do not know personally, but who comes of a good sporting Dorset family—that this money should, in fact, be spent.
If this money is spent on this light land it cannot continue indefinitely to grow crops or barley, heavily artificially manured it may be, as it is at present. I believe that it will result in uneconomic


investment on behalf of the Crown Commission, or too great a cost for whoever buys it and too great a rent for whoever rents it. I believe that that is still the fundamental issue.
I would hope that it is not too late for those in the area concerned, the heirs of the previous owners and the Crown Commissioners, despite all difficulties, to get round a table and come to a sensible solution. Then the buildings outside the area concerned, which have hardly been mentioned in this debate so far, could be used.
The land could be made to produce economically and properly by utilising existing building by agreement between the existing tenant and heirs of the previous owners. Then the nation would be saved unnecessary expenditure of capital which otherwise could only be over invested. At the same time, whoever farms the land would not be saddled indefinitely with what I believe would be an uneconomic rent.

8.13 p.m.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: This has been an extremely useful debate in many respects. It has given the House an opportunity, which does not often arise, to consider the relations between the civil servants and Parliament and between civil servants and the Minister. That is a matter of interest to both sides of the House.
A party, like that to which I belong, which desires a greater measure of public control and ownership, is a party which has a particular interest in this whole subject and must recognise its importance. We on this side of the House want an extension of public ownership and public control. It is therefore of quite distinctive importance to us that we should be confident that we have an efficient Civil Service and that satisfactory relationships exist between Ministers and their civil servants. We should feel sure that the civil servants are as uncorrupted by power as it is known they are uncorrupted by anything else.
In my view it is a mistake to think that the events of Crichel Down revealed defects inherent in control by Government Departments. I am relieved that that point has not been made in the debate. It has been made occasionally

outside. It is quite true that Crichel Down has revealed bad administration in a public Department, but bad administration can occur in public business just as it can in private business. The task is to ascertain how best it can be dealt with and to cure it, and for that task Parliament is in the very best position.
Good administration by Government Departments must depend on three things particularly. The first is skilful and sensible recruitment, the second is an effective and alert Minister at the head of the Department and the third is an effective method of disciplining civil servants by the Minister when that is appropriate, and effective methods of disciplining the Minister by Parliament when that is appropriate. The House of Commons is the ideal arbiter to decide when the Minister should be disciplined. The action of the Minister in tendering his resignation is respected on all sides because, if he had continued in office, the main sufferer from such a departure from the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility would have been the House of Commons. That has been avoided, and it is a good thing that it has been avoided. The House and the country are indebted to the late Minister because it was avoided in that way. But that does not alter the fact that the House of Commons is the ideal arbiter to decide when there is just that degree of urgency and importance in a matter to determine that the full price should be paid of a Ministerial resignation.
I feel that in considering what, constitutionally, should be the action of a Minister in this connection, it is quite wrong to insist that the Minister should be in jeopardy because of minor failures by his Department. The House of Commons is the arbiter in the matter of determining whether a Minister should be required to resign or not in a given situation, and it has to ask itself two questions. The House has to ask itself: does the Minister's act or omission have the result of lowering confidence in the Minister's capacity to manage the affairs of his Department? If the answer is in the affirmative, the Minister has to go.
The other question I suggest which should be asked is: is the difficulty which has arisen and the matter which has gone wrong and given rise to disquiet one which the Minister could have foreseen


and dealt with? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative, then also he should go. This is placing a high standard before Ministers, but they have great privileges and they must accept great responsibilities. They are under a duty to be on the alert to give the directives which are necessary on important matters of policy from the word go. To show how non-partisan our consideration of this topic is, I would remind the House of the way in which the Prime Minister started his duties at the Admiralty when he took up the duties of First Lord at the beginning of the war. There was no lack of directives on that occasion.

Mr. James Callaghan: Too many.

Mr. Irvine: My hon. Friend says, "Too many." That rather spoils the atmosphere I seek to promote.

Mr. Callaghan: I was hoping it would.

Mr. Irvine: They were good directives.
It is with these principles in mind that turn to consider the Report on Crichel Down and the events which have followed.
When one looks through the Report one asks, with those vital principles in mind: have things occurred here arising out of this immensely important relationship between civil servants, their Minister, and Parliament, which justify a Ministerial resignation and the amount of concern and anxiety which Parliament has manifested? There are certain matters revealed by the Report which, taken by themselves, do not, in my view, justify a resignation. There are others which made resignation necessary and inevitable, unless there was to be a notable departure from our constitutional practice principles.
The failures committed by the Minister and his Department acting together can be classified under four separate heads. First of all, there was the situation as it developed up to June, 1952, when most of what was going on appears to have taken place without reference to the Minister at all, and when the officials concerned appear not to have known what the Minister's powers were or what Government policy was. Officials in very important positions were unaware that there was a power in the Government to sell, and they were unaware what the

policy of the Government and of the Minister was. That was the stage of the story when the decision was made to deal with Crichel Down as a single fully-equipped farming unit. It culminated in the decision to turn down Captain Taylor's offer to rent Crichel Down at £3 per acre.
That is a stage in the story when the conduct of the Department was so unsatisfactory that the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility is inevitably invoked, unless there is to be a very alarming departure from principle and practice. Although the Minister did not know what was going on, the state of confusion and ignorance which existed was the consequence of his lack of directive and his failure to make Goverment policy clear.
The second stage of the story is the failure in August and September, 1952, to give an acurate report upon which the Minister could rightly judge the situation and come to a correct decision. That was the stage when the unfortunate Mr. Brown, for whom all of us must feel sorry, was required to make his report. That was the kind of administrative failure which is apt to happen in the best managed concerns. Taking that stage of the story by itself, lamentable though it was, I would not regard the circumstances there divulged as justifying or necessitating a Ministerial resignation.
The third stage is the failure, between January and March, 1953, to inform the Commissioners for Crown Lands of the applications made for a tenancy by previous owners. That is a lamentable failure but, taken by itself, would not justify anything so drastic as a ministerial resignation. One of the conclusions of fact at which Sir Andrew Clark arrived, one of the few conclusions of fact which raise any question or doubt in my mind, is that contained in paragraph 13 of the conclusions, that there was no obligation upon Mr. Thomson towards Mr. Tozer arising at the time when he was acting for the Commissioners for Crown Lands, between January and March, 1953.
I cannot discover in the Report or in the evidence a justification for that conclusion. At least there was enough in the attendant circumstances to justify the impression in Mr. Thomson's mind that he had an obligation to Mr. Tozer All


these difficulties arose from the circumstance that negotiations were going on on behalf of the Commissioners for Crown Lands without their having received from the Ministry of Agriculture information about the applications for a tenancy by former owners of the land. I put that in the class of administrative mishaps which do not by themselves warrant a resignation.
The fourth and final stage of the story concerns the Minister's reaction to the whole affair, once it had been investigated and reported upon and the apparently small extent of the disciplinary action which he took. Just as there was failure at the first stage to give effective directives to the Department and to let it know what policy was, so there was a failure at the last stage. The Report revealed, beyond any doubt, a most unholy mess, and heads should have fallen. More than reprimands should have rent the air. There was a general feeling in the public mind, which was pretty much awake by this time, about the enormity of the matter.
The Minister's reaction was not severe and stringent enough. The impression was given that, as there was no evidence that corruption had been found, that was a matter for great relief and that no strenuous remedial action need be taken. Yet what was needed was very severe action in the Department. There was failure by the Minister to recognise that this was demanded of him, in the situation which had arisen.
I will conclude by reminding the House of what is already widely known, that these last few years have seen powers passing from the courts of law to Government Departments in ever-increasing numbers. The powers have passed from the trusted organs of the administration of the law, the courts, to Government Departments. Of course, in that process, considerable perils are involved. As these powers pass in that way, the only control over them is through Parliament itself, and the fact that delegated powers have become more and more extensive is a reason, not for less, but for greater vigilance by Parliament. I think that is a proposition which would be accepted on both sides of the House.
There has been an element of personal sadness today, because it has seen the resignation of a respected and distinguished Minister, but there is also in what has occurred something reassuring and even inspiring. It seems to me that Parliament has once again asserted its recognition of the crucial point, that it must be master, and that if civil servants get out of control and behave badly—as they have done in this case—and the responsible Minister of the Crown does not resign, that is a very serious departure from what is best in our constitutional principles and traditions.

8.30 p.m.

Viscount Lambton: I think that the whole House will agree with me in thinking that this has been a very unpleasant debate. In fact, from both sides of the House we have had opinions expressing that common thought. I wish to say at once how much I agree with the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) in nearly everything he said. There has been a curious division in the type of speeches made from the benches opposite. There has been a marked contrast between the speeches made by hon. Members opposite who are also members of the legal profession and those who are not. Both the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and the hon. Member for Edge Hill have, I think, made as good speeches as one could ever hope to hear. The only thing one wonders is what their action will be later tonight in the event of a Division, because we have heard from them Conservative principles and sound sense.

Mr. Irvine: I can stand a good deal from the noble Lord, but I cannot permit him to describe the observations I have put before the House as being observations of Tory principle. The noble Lord may think they are, but I do not.

Viscount Lambton: I also noticed that certain right hon. Members of the Front Bench hold the same view as I do in this matter. Whatever principles they are, they are very welcome principles and they were very good speeches.
I wish to ask, first of all, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to put right a statement made, I am sure inadvertently, by the resigning Minister


in his speech. He said that the first proposal made by Commander Marten to purchase Crichel Down was made in 1952. Had that been the case, it would, of course, have altered our opinion concerning Commander Marten's conduct, and we should not have felt that he had been so shabbily treated. I am sure the Minister will agree with me that the first proposal was actually made by Major Seymour, the agent for the Crichel Down Estate, in March, 1950. I think that is the detail which should be corrected if we are properly to understand Commander Marten's striking and worth-while action.
The only other thing I wish to mention about the Minister's speech is something which, coming from him with his undoubted good nature, struck me as a bit of bad law. He said that when civil servants are brought up before an inquiry of this sort, the inquiry and what is said at it are punishment in themselves. It is sometimes maintained that the censure of an individual at an inquiry is punishment in itself. If we carry that premise to its logical conclusion then any person coming before a court of law could argue that the unpleasant things said of him by the judge and opposing counsel were punishment enough for his actions.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: That is often argued and often is accepted as sufficient punishment.

Viscount Lambton: That is a matter of opinion. Whether or not it is often argued I could not say, but that it should be accepted would be a bit of bad law.
From that I should like to turn very briefly to certain remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). He had some rather hard things to say about Sir Andrew Clark's Report. In fact, so weak did the right hon. Member's case seem to be that his speech depended entirely upon discrediting the Report. We had given to us certain inaccuracies which the right hon. Member said considerably invalidated the effect of the Report. To show how useless was the Report and how unfit Sir Andrew Clark was to make it, he quoted from paragraph 78:
It is regrettable that a responsible official in the position of a Trustee, as Mr. Eastwood undoubtedly was, should have answered questions relating to authority for the expenditure of Trust moneys in this light-hearted mariner.

The right hon. Member said what a ridiculous thing that was to say when one considers that Sir Andrew a little later on said:
…that Mr. Tozer was a first-class farmer, and the rent' of £3 per acre was a very good one.
The right hon. Member knows that he there left out the linking sentence in that paragraph. He left out what Sir Andrew Clark actually said, which was:
In point of fact, however, no harm can have been done since the evidence clearly showed that Mr. Tozer was a first-class farmer…
The right hon. Gentleman took the words out of their context and claimed that the conclusion of Sir Andrew Clark—following through a remark of his own—

Mr. G. Brown: What difference does it make?

Viscount Lambton: You left out the middle of the sentence.

Mr. Brown: What effect had it?

Viscount Lambton: It had the effect that you tried to say that, as Mr. Eastwood had acted in a light-hearted manner, how ridiculous it was for Sir Andrew Clark to say it showed that Mr. Tozer was a first-class farmer, and you left out—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): I am afraid that I did not leave out anything.

Viscount Lambton: But the right hon. Gentleman did.
He also made another comment that what has been done is done and that the present situation at Crichel Down should now remain. That what has been done has been done and cannot be changed seems to be a most remarkable point of view, and one which does not allow of very much social progress or change—an attitude of mind which, I should have thought, hardly belonged to the right hon. Gentleman himself. However, we can leave it at that.
I would very briefly like to go through what I consider to be the three features of this debate. If the Opposition is to divide the House, it will be of great interest to know what it will divide it on, because the origin of this plan, it must be quite plain, was in May, 1950, and the decision to equip the farm as a single


unit was definitely settled in October, 1951. The General Election at which the Conservative Party came into power was held on 26th October, 1951, and that period—had anyone less efficient than the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) previously been Minister of Agriculture—might be described as the "hangover" period, when the policy of the late Ministry was still being carried out by this Government.
The next point to which I should like to refer is the attitude of the civil servants and how during the next four months they seemed to connive to prevent any true glimpse of the facts coming before the Minister. The first opportunity that the Minister had to bring about a change of policy in agriculture was in the summer of 1952, and then he inquired of his officials whether or not it was possible to sell land. He was not told until November that it was possible for his Ministry to get rid of land. The Ministerial relations with Commander Marten and with the Civil Service resulted from the fact that during nearly the whole of 1952 the Minister was informed by his officials that he was not able to sell the land, that that was the legal opinion, which must make us consider what a difficult position he was in.
In 1953 we had the entrance of Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Eastwood on the scene. I cannot help for a moment digressing on the status of the Civil Service at this time, and wondering whether or not the present action of the Minister will appear to result, in a curious way, in the vindication of the Civil Service's ability to make the grossest type of mistake and still maintain itself in office while the Minister accepts responsibility for those mistakes. It is true that we have lost Mr. Eastwood, but we have not lost any of the civil servants. We have, on the other hand, lost the Minister because he has made himself responsible in a noble way for those mistakes. [An HON. MEMBER: "He was responsible."] I agree that he was responsible, but I want to emphasise the extraordinary difficulty of the Minister, particularly when he is held to be responsible for the action of any civil servant.
In 1912 the number of civil servants was about 600. In 1923 it had risen to 2,300, but at present it has risen to 12,600. These 12,600 are not combined in a

compact body. They are scattered throughout the whole length and breadth of the country. They are here, there and everywhere. There are some in remote places, and all of them are out of contact with the Minister.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: Is the noble Lord talking of the administrative class of civil servant, because there are far more than 12,000 in the Civil Service?

Viscount Lambton: Yes. I agree that there are other groups, which make the number even higher and, therefore, make the position of the Minister very difficult. I am not sure that we have realised that fact.
The question I want to raise is whether or not there remains any honour in the Civil Service or whether they are going to regard this day as won. I do not consider that the Civil Service has been treated nearly severely enough on this occasion. The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) read two extracts from the speeches of Mr. Wilcox and of Mr. Eastwood. These letters are to be found in the White Paper. Those speeches completely condemn the civil servants for, at the very least, deceit. I make no attempt to condemn them myself, but it would be wise for us to look at some of the other deceits which were practised upon the Minister during his period of office.
I have referred to Mr. Eastwood. We then have Mr. Smith, who is in Greece at the moment. I understand that he is to retain his Civil Service status, despite the fact that he told what was, as far as one can make out, a deliberate untruth. Reference to that will be found in paragraph 36 (a) of the White Paper. Though he knew perfectly well that Commander Marten had stated that Crichel Down was acquired compulsorily, he omitted to mention this at a meeting. Then there is Mr. Hole, who connived, together with Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Eastwood, in preventing applicants from knowing what had happened to their applications.
These four men are to remain in the Civil Service, although they deliberately deceived the Minister. The worse case of all is that of Mr. Wilcox, who caused inquiry to be made about Commander Marten which, in another place, might very well have been compared to undue persuasion. He asked the Lands Service


officers to find out whether Commander Marten had built his cottage on the speculation of obtaining Crichel Down. Sir Andrew Clark said that he could not accept the reason which Mr. Wilcox gave as being satisfactory. How could it be? This was a most unpleasant attempt to find out something—behind his back—about an individual with whom one was trading, in order to get that individual to adopt a course of conduct which suited one. I can see only the greatest discredit in this course of conduct.
I cannot believe that we have taken the right course in allowing these men to remain in positions of public trust. Those who have practised deceit remain, while the Minister, who takes the blame and the responsibility for their actions, goes. They merely shift to another position. Now that the Minister has resigned, we must review the whole scheme of Ministerial responsibility, and consider whether or not it is possible for a Minister to be fully responsible for all the people under him. Above all, we must see that the Civil Service does not in any way believe that it can make mistakes like this and, as it were, get away with it.
I cannot but think that those members of the Civil Service of whom I have spoken have done the whole movement a profound harm. Our Civil Service as a whole is undoubtedly the best in the world, and yet it is retaining men who have practised deceit and chicanery. Those men are exempt from punishment. In those circumstances the public cannot but take the view that the Civil Service will regard its members as above reproach and beyond punishment.
I would conclude by saying how sorry I am that the Minister has had to go, but, perhaps, taking all in all, it was the best course that he could take. I did not like the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper spoke about it. In this House it has always been considered a good action and a great thing in a Minister to resign in such circumstances as those in which my right hon. Friend has resigned, and when one remembers that my right hon. Friend brought about his own resignation by himself originating the inquiry in this matter, I think we should pay an especially high tribute to him on taking the course of resigning.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. Herbert Morrison (Lewisham, South): The noble Lord the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton) has delivered some rather extensive warnings and criticisms about the Civil Service, and it is, perhaps, well that I should commence on that subject. There can be no doubt that a Minister of the Crown is responsible for all the acts of his civil servants—and all the absence of acts required. He is responsible for every stamp stuck on an envelope—if, in Government Departments, stamps ever are stuck on envelopes.
There can be no question whatever that Ministers are responsible for everything that their officers do, but if civil servants make errors or commit failures the House has a right to be assured that the Minister has dealt with the errors or failures adequately and properly, or that he will do so. That is a duty that falls on Ministers as well, and it would be wrong for a Minister automatically to defend every act of his officers or servants merely because they belong to his Department. Therefore, the House has to be satisfied that he is dealing with the matter adequately.
In this case, I think that the Minister, in his statement of 15th June, took the matter somewhat too lightly. He did not appreciate, I think, the gravity of certain incidents; though I think that some hon. Gentlemen opposite and some newspapers, on the other hand, have been making too much of them. Indeed, I think that the Report that we are considering today does the same thing. However, I think it right to say that on 15th June the Minister took it rather too easily. He said:
I have, naturally, given to those who are criticised an opportunity of making to me such observations as they wished on those parts of the Report which referred to them. Having considered the observations and explanations I have received, I must in fairness say that I have formed a less unfavourable view of many of the actions taken by those concerned than appears in the Report. Mistakes and errors of judgment were made which those concerned regret as much as I do; and steps are being taken, so far as possible to see that these do not happen again. In view of the nature of the errors themselves and of the public way in which they have been exposed, I am satisfied that no further action by me in relation to them is necessary. I consider that the Agricultural Land Commission are fulfilling a useful function."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th June, 1954: Vol. 528, c 1759.]


With the last sentence we would all agree, but I think that in the earlier passages of his statement the Minister was taking the situation rather more lightly than he ought to have done.
We have to combine that fact with the fact that today we have a new White Paper before us, dealing with an inquiry which has been made at the instance of the Prime Minister. This White Paper was deposited in the Vote Office after the Minister's speech. I should have thought that it would have been better had it been deposited there before the Minister's speech. This is not the first time this has happened. It cramps the style of the House of Commons if these White Papers are deposited after the Ministerial speech instead of before it, and I should have thought that it would have been physically possible to have deposited it before the speech.
This has been an inquiry by two ex-Permanent Secretaries and one business man—I think the third was a business man. It is an arguable point whether two out of the three should have been former Permanent Secretaries in the higher Civil Service, but I do not feel like dogmatising about that point. It is arguable. In any case, it could not be said to be a tribunal which would be unduly biased against the Civil Service.
Notwithstanding that fact, the tribunal took a somewhat more severe view of the matter than did the Minister; it is not fair to go beyond that. There will be one transfer, namely, the Permanent Crown Lands Commissioner. It is likely that there would have been another transfer had it not been that the gentleman concerned was transferred to financial functions in the Ministry. The Minister has told us that that was before the inquiry began. Thus, in all probability there would have been two transfers. In three other cases it is not proposed that there should be any change in their position or duties.
It may be right, in exceptional circumstances, for the Minister publicly to criticise his civil servants. This is a delicate matter. I will give one instance from my experience, although I do not want to go into undue detail, because it is over and done with. I had given a specific order that something was to be done in a certain way and it was not done in that way. I

had promised the House that it would be done in that way and the House was consequently after me, and was quite right to be after me.
In that case, where the specific Ministerial order had not been carried out, I thought it right to tell the House what had happened—that an officer had not carried out his instructions. I castigated him in the House. I did not like doing it. The poor man sat in the Gallery over there. I think that that was legitimate—good for him, and, what is more important, good for everybody else, because it teaches them that when the Minister gives the order, he has given the order and it must be carried out.
That is an extreme case. The truth is that there lies between the Minister and the civil servant a life between colleagues who together, in partnership, are running a great State Department; that they all have responsibilities to the public—both the Minister and the civil servants through the Minister—and that nobody should forget his responsibilities to the public. Minor issues arise from time to time—and there are bound to be annoyances. Sometimes the civil servant may not do a thing quite in the way in which the Minister would like it done. That is inevitable—and not only in the Civil Service; it happens in every business undertaking throughout the land. When these wholesale allegations are made against the British civil servant, especially by hon. Members who are engaged in private business, I wish they would remember the number of times they are annoyed by the gentleman below them in their private business. That is a common experience.
In such cases, the matter is better dealt with inside the Department, and that is the end of it. I remember one or two cases where it was thought that we had done something wrong and where I had admitted it and had said that the responsibility was mine. I said that if the House wanted anybody's head it was my head it should have. Hon. Members wanted to know who was the officer who had gone wrong and I stated that I was not disposed to say, that I would deal with him—and I did—and that if the House wanted anybody's head on a charger, mine was the head it should have. That is the right, constitutional doctrine. If we get away from it, we


shall go wrong. Therefore, at the end of the day, the Minister is responsible.
In dealing with these matters, we must remember the other side of the picture. No one wants to encourage rudeness or discourtesy on the part of public officers whether in national service or in local government service. On the other hand, one has to be careful about discouraging frank, open and honest reports from civil servants to their Ministers if they have criticisms to make of people outside—I would not say about Members of Parliament, because that would be asking for trouble—and it is inevitable that, from time to time, comments should be made about persons with whom the Department comes into argument or conflict.
We can have two faults. We can have, in the case of the minority, aggressiveness, spitefulness, possibly a tendency to injustice as between public officers and the public outside. That is wrong. But it would be no less wrong that an officer, because he is afraid of possible repercussions, should not report frankly to his superior officers, and through them, to the Minister concerned. So we must be careful about this, otherwise we can demoralise the Civil Service that way as well as we can the other way. It is important to keep that in mind.
My criticism of the officers concerned would be that it would appear that promises to certain farmers about the right of tendering or of consideration for certain farming lands were not kept. There was partly a failure in the machinery of transferring the information from what we might call one national public authority to another which ought not to have happened; but it is also the case that, at one stage—unless one can upset the argument in the Report, and I will come to some of the other sides of the Report—when it was known that there had been these undertakings, there appears to have been a tendency or an endeavour to evade or to circumscribe the undertakings which had been given. That is a serious thing. It may have been right or it may have been wrong that the undertakings had been given, but in any case the authority was not bound to accept any of the tenders: it could have taken another course.
An undertaking had been given to give them consideration, and it is a most serious thing if public faith is not kept in

a matter of that kind. In that respect, I think that the authority were wrong and there was evasion, an unpleasant evasion, at a certain stage in the process. Moreover, some of the reports to higher officers or to higher authority were incomplete or misleading. Some of the reports passed on even from the higher-ups to the lower-downs were incomplete, and the full file was not transferred. This was due either to incompetence or slothfulness—I doubt whether it was a wish to deceive—and it was unfortunate, and a bad thing.
Moreover, there was some confusion in the evolution of the story and the happenings between the Land Commission, the Crown Lands and the Ministry which ought not to have happened. All this must come back to the administrative competence of the Minister and of the Government themselves. If they were running the show properly, these things ought not to have happened.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) made a very fair and excellent speech. There would have been more aggressiveness in it had it not been that the Minister had resigned. Naturally, none of us wants to knock a man about too much when he is down, and if I criticise the right hon. Gentleman it will not be because I want to hurt him—we all sympathise with a Minister who has resigned; it is because I feel it a public duty to ventilate certain views
My right hon. Friend thought the same thing and acted accordingly; otherwise he would have made a more aggressive speech. That accounts for his restraint and conduct. He asked—and I hope that the Home Secretary will deal with this point in his reply, "Why Crown Lands?" I want to know about the transfer of responsibility from the Land Commission, which appears to us to have been the proper body to have handled this all the way through, to Crown Lands. Is it the case that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had cut down or restricted the Minister's estimates, and that if they went on Crown Lands they did not have to appear in the Estimates but that had they stayed on the Land Commission they would have had to appear in the Estimates? If that is so—I want the Home Secretary to tell us—that would constitute an effort to deceive the House of Commons and to evade our financial control. We shall hear about that.
Finally, among the gentlemen who made mistakes—the number is not all that great, but there are sufficient to take notice of them—I would say that one of the most serious of them, the one, perhaps, singularly most open to criticism, was not a civil servant at all. It would be fair on the part of hon. Members opposite that this point would have been made during their own speeches. I have not heard them all, but I have not noticed it said during the time I have been present.
I am referring to Mr. Thomson, who seemed to be a gentleman of great determination. He is not a civil servant; he is a professional man. He works for a private enterprise firm of surveyors and estate agents and he was a man of great determination, determined about what should happen. As a whole, Mr. Thomson won. He has to come into the picture as well as the civil servants.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day there was this administrative failure on the part not only of the Minister, but, not less, of both of his Parliamentary Secretaries, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in this House and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in the Lords. If one of those gentlemen gets the Minister's job, it will be the greatest injustice in the history of British public administration. However, I do not suppose that either of them will get it. No doubt there are other applicants. Any Conservative Member of Parliament who takes on the job of Minister of Agriculture in a Conservative Government knows that it is one of those cases where a man has gone up only to come down in due course. It is a most risky occupation; the mortality rate is very high.

Mr. Osborne: What about the War Office?

Mr. Morrison: Never mind about that. I never heard such gentlemen as those opposite. I am used to my Cockneys. If I am talking about the Soviet Union somebody among them will shout, "What about the United States" or about somebody else who may have nothing to do with the question; we all understand each other and we enjoy it. But hon. Members opposite ought to take themselves more seriously.
When all is said and done, these faults and errors—and I hope I have given them full weight as I think it my duty to do—provide no case for the wholesale and general attacks on the British Civil Service that have been made. I have worked in local government, in national affairs and I have mixed with public officers of all sorts and sizes. I have worked in a newspaper circulation department, and if anyone wants an exciting life that is the place to work-. There, mistakes were made. Sometimes trains were lost. We could not help it sometimes.
Mistakes are made in private and professional life all over the place. That is nothing about which to boast nor anything about which to be happy, but there is a class of politician—several of them are to be found on the other side of the House and even among Ministers and certainly among newspapers, bless their hearts: I would not be without them for the world—who, whenever there is the smallest mistake in the Civil Service, engage in a sweeping, wholesale denunciation of that service. During the period of the war many of them had to do strange things, but there was a fairly high degree of efficiency and they worked hard and quickly. In the Government that followed the war, as my right hon. and hon. Friends who were Members of it will testify, we ran them very hard indeed.

Mr. G. Lindgren: And they worked hard.

Mr. Morrison: We ran ourselves hard, too, and, as my hon. Friend says, they worked hard and they were adaptable and capable. I am taking the service as a whole. Here and there there were exceptions, but as a whole the Government, the House of Commons and the British people owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Civil Service for its ability, its capacity—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We are getting on nicely. This is an example of how the art of persuasion should be pursued.
But, above all, what we are most proud of is its integrity, its public spirit, its incorruptibility, and its willingness to be loyal to one Government as much as to another. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We are still getting on nicely. Members opposite appreciate that and I hope they will appreciate it more often


and show that praise instead of implying the opposite. The next time the Beaver-brook Press biff the Civil Service I expect about 20 hon. Members opposite to write letters of strong protest.
The morale and the efficiency of the Civil Service can be hurt in two ways. It can be hurt by a failure to check something which interferes with its work and it can be hurt by an unjust denunciation of the whole service. The Minister held that he was right to equip the land as one farm and handle it in that way. There is a good deal of expert and technical opinion on his side about that.
No question of a State farm is involved here. It was a question of how the show should be organised and how the community should set about finding an efficient farmer so that it could be farmed on modern and up-to-date lines. He did say that, but the Report has enough in it to cause many of us on this side of the House to suspect some bias. I say this with regret.
There are in the Report a substantially noticeable number of assertions which are not true. There is a little slip in nomenclature which I do not mind, but which indicates the political outlook of the gentleman who wrote it. Hon. Members will notice that in Conservative newspapers we are always referred to as the Socialist Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Are you not?"] Yes, certainly, but out official name is the Labour Party.
If an impartial legal gentleman were appointed by the Government to produce a report and he referred to the Tory Government, some of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, including the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) would suspect that the gentleman was what they would call a Socialist politician. We are Socialists and proud of it. Nevertheless, when the language of the "Daily Telegraph" and of all the other Tory newspapers is used, it is a sign of the political outlook of the gentleman.
Moreover, in the Report there is a confusion between facts—the factual Part 1 of the Report and the conclusions. There are too many conclusions in Part II, not all warranted by the facts, and sometimes not enough facts in the factual part of the report. And although the Minister in appointing the gentleman to make this

inquiry said that policy was excluded, nevertheless policy considerations come into the Report from time to time.
We are faced today with the resignation of the Minister and that is a fact. We can feel sorry on personal grounds but, in all the circumstances, in view of what I have said, I am not prepared to say that the right hon. Gentleman is wrong in resigning in view of the story that I have had to tell and that others have had to tell also. I feel additionally strong on that ground for this reason, that I cannot understand why a Minister who has already tendered his resignation should come to that Box—I am not sure that he should come to that Box anyway, because he is on the way out—to announce and defend a policy with which we know in our hearts he does not really agree.
Would it not have been wiser for him to have stood his ground and said, "I adhere to the policy which I have been pursuing." And if the Prime Minister or the Government or, more properly, the 1922 Committee who now function as what the Soviet Union would call an enlarged Cabinet, almost an enlarged Prime Minister. [An HON. MEMBER: "Tammany Hall."] As this thing happened, it seems to me constitutionally wrong on the part of the Prime Minister and on the part of the Cabinet, that they should have forced, I suppose, the resigning Minister of Agriculture, in his last words as a Minister, to announce that he abandoned the policy which he had pursued, and almost to apologise for it. He should have stuck to his guns and resigned on grounds of policy.
What was the defence? That 1954 is not 1952. I say on any grounds, including grounds that should appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the principal economic co-ordinating Minister, that if it was right, as we held as a Labour Government not only in 1952 but in 1945—and right nobly did my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) fight for the policy, and did so successfully, assisted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) and others—that in our balance of payments situation for one thing, but in the interests of the self-reliance of this gallant island for another, it was absolutely vital that we should grow every hit of food that we could at home and


make every effort to that end. That view is just as right today.
The test of these policies, which the Minister had been pursuing, and the only crime he committed, is that in some respects he followed the policy of my right hon. Friend. [HON. MEMBERS: "No.") Yes. Hon. Members opposite and their Government will be ruined by their dogmas and doctrinaire beliefs. One of their dogmas is that if something was done by a Labour Government it must be wrong. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] That is confirmed by at least one hon. Member, and it is so silly. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman has had to resign and has been compelled to humiliate himself by announcing a change of policy in his last words.
This is a victory for the boys upstairs. This is a victory for the 1922 Committee. It is also a victory for backward influences in the Cabinet. Time after time this is happening. I will not go through all the instances. Television was not wanted. It was forced on the Government by not more than 20 hon. Members opposite. Then there was Members' pay. There was a Report by a Select Committee, followed by a free vote of the House, and that free vote was ignored by order of an irresponsible band of M.P.s upstairs. That has never happened under a Labour Government. [Laughter.] No, our liaison was more intelligently managed. Let hon. Members opposite make the most of that, if they like. We did not get into this situation in which, time after time, the Government are being driven by the gentlemen upstairs into policies which they ought not to pursue.
Now the 1922 Committee has the scalp of a Minister and has a new policy in agriculture announced by that Minister at the point of his retirement, during his last moments as a Minister of the Crown. Why did the Joint Parliamentary-Secretaries stay? They were handling this matter day by day. Their responsibility was not less than that of the Minister himself. Today, therefore, we condemn the Government on the following grounds: First, administrative incompetence; secondly, undue back bench pressure. I am in favour of a reasonable amount of back bench pressure. It is a

pleasure to handle it. I say that there has been undue back bench pleasure. [Laughter.] As a matter of fact, there is undue back bench pleasure as well. Back benchers opposite are happy that they have the scalp of a Minister. Thirdly, we are against the Government because of the grave change of policy which has been announced today by the expiring Minister, with the result that now in agricultural policy we are ceasing to put production first. The Government are putting doctrinaire Tory politics first.
Finally, the very fact that the Home Secretary is to reply is conclusive evidence and proof that the Government have a weak case. Merely because he is, or was, a distinguished lawyer, the Government perpetuate the mistake that he can, therefore, defend any rotten case of the Government. We shall probably find that 11e will not make a good case, but the fact that he is to try is conclusive evidence that the Government have not a good case. For these several and sufficient reasons we feel it right to divide the House.

9.26 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): I am duly impressed by the inverted compliment that the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) was good enough to pay me. It reminded me and, as a good Dickensian, I am sure that this was the origin of the phrase, of the case of Bardell versus Pickwick, when the great slogan was enunciated, "Weak case, abuse plaintiff's attorney." I give the right hon. Member leave to use that as often as he finds it useful.
I echo the initial thought of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) in opening this debate, because I am sure that everyone who has listened to it must have had at least three thoughts in his mind. The first was a personal sorrow for the departure from the Government of my right hon. Friend. No one in this House, wherever he sits, will deny the complexity of the problems of increasing production and harmonising guaranteed prices with a freer economy with which my right hon. Friend has had to deal, whatever they think is the solution. I hope that no one will deny to his colleagues their gratitude for the magnificent way in which they think he has handled


the problem. The second thought that has been in the minds of all hon. Members—I have in mind the speeches of the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) and the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) among others—was that it must be the prime concern of all of us, wherever we sit in the House, to see that what has taken place in regard to Crichel Down does not happen again.
Thirdly—here I re-echo the first part of the speech of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South, which I am sure he meant with all seriousness and sincerity—we have taken the opportunity, as a House, of examining keenly, but judiciously, in the light of these happenings, the position of the Government and the Civil Service, and of trying to bring up to date, and to state fairly and fully, the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility. It is because of the immense seriousness of this aspect of the matter and of this occasion that I repeat that I am in very great agreement with what the right hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech.
There has been considerable anxiety, not only in the Press but given vent to by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, the hon. Member for Edge Hill and my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. J. Morrison) and my noble Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton), as to how far the principle of Ministerial responsibility goes. We all recognise that we must have that principle in existence and that Ministers must be responsible for the acts of civil servants. Without it, it would be impossible to have a Civil Service which would be able to serve Ministries and Governments of different political faiths and persuasions with the same zeal and honesty which we have always found. I hope that answers the point made by my noble Friend.
There has been criticism that the principle operates so as to oblige Ministers to extend total protection to their officials and to endorse their acts, and to cause the position that civil servants cannot be called to account and are effectively responsible to no one. That is a position which I believe is quite wrong, and I think it is the cardinal error that has crept into the appreciation of this situation. It is quite untrue that well-justified public criticism of the actions of civil

servants cannot be made on a suitable occasion. The position of the civil servant is that he is wholly and directly responsible to his Minister. It is worth stating again that he holds his office "at pleasure" and can be dismissed at any time by the Minister; and that power is none the less real because it is seldom used. The only exception relates to a small number of senior posts, like permanent secretary, deputy secretary, and principal financial officer, where, since 1920, it has been necessary for the Minister to consult the Prime Minister, as he does on appointment.
I would like to put the different categories where different considerations apply. I am in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, that in the case where there is an explicit order by a Minister, the Minister must protect the civil servant who has carried out his order. Equally, where the civil servant acts properly in accordance with the policy laid down by the Minister, the Minister must protect and defend him.
I come to the third category, which is different. Again, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman, he agrees with me on this. Where an official makes a mistake or causes some delay, but not on an important issue of policy and not where a claim to individual rights is seriously involved, the Minister acknowledges the mistake and he accepts the responsibility, although he is not personally involved. He states that he will take corrective action in the Department. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that he would not, in those circumstances, expose the official to public criticism. I think that is important, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that it should come from both sides of the House that we are agreed on this important aspect of public affairs.
But when one comes to the fourth category, where action has been taken by a civil servant of which the Minister disapproves and has no prior knowledge, and the conduct of the official is reprehensible, then there is no obligation on the part of the Minister to endorse what he believes to be wrong, or to defend what are clearly shown to be errors of his officers. The Minister is not bound to defend action of which he did not know, or of which he disapproves. But, of course, he remains constitutionally


responsible to Parliament for the fact that something has gone wrong, and he alone can tell Parliament what has occurred and render an account of his stewardship.
The fact that a Minister has to do that does not affect his power to control and discipline his staff. One could sum it up by saying that it is part of a Minister's responsibility to Parliament to take necessary action to ensure efficiency and the proper discharge of the duties of his Department. On that, only the Minister can decide what it is right and just to do, and he alone can hear all sides, including the defence.
It has been suggested in this debate, and has been canvassed in the Press, that there is another aspect which adds to our difficulties, and that is that today the work and the tasks of Government permeate so many spheres of our national life that it is impossible for the Minister to keep track of all these matters.
I believe that that is a matter which can be dealt with by the instructions which the Minister gives in his Department. He can lay down standing instructions to see that his policy is carried out. He can lay down rules by which it is ensured that matters of importance, of difficulty or of political danger are brought to his attention. Thirdly, there is the control of this House, and it is one of the duties of this House to see that that control is always put into effect.
There is the other side of that on which I wish to spend a moment. The hon. Member for Edge Hill in the course of a very interesting and reasoned speech, used the phrase, "Heads should have fallen." As I have said, it is a matter for the Minister to decide when civil servants are guilty of shortcomings in their official conduct. Normally, the Civil Service has no procedure equivalent to a court-martial, or anything of that kind. There have in the past been a few inquiries to establish the facts and the degree of culpability of individuals, but the decision as to the disciplinary action to be taken has been left to the Minister.
I want to put to the House, and especially to some hon. Members who appear doubtful about this part of the matter, that at the time of the Clark inquiry no civil servant was charged with anything.

When the Report reached the Minister, it contained criticisms of certain civil servants, and it was then only just—I cannot see how any fair-minded person can see any objection to this—that my right hon. Friend should bring these criticisms to the attention of the persons concerned and ask for their explanation and observations. After all, Mr. Speaker, you and I know that the two requirements of natural justice that have gone back to the beginning of civilisation are that a person who may be punished should know what the complaint is against him and that he should be given an opportunity to meet it. That is the basis of the rule of law throughout the ages. No one, I am sure, would deny it to civil servants. That is why my right hon. Friend took that line.
I want to make it quite clear—and, again, I answer a point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd), who earlier in the debate asked for an assurance which I now want to give—that there has been no attempt on the part of the Civil Service to cover up the faults that have been disclosed. All the civil servants concerned have at every stage co-operated fully in bringing the facts to light. The Service, as a service, is as shocked by the errors brought to light as anyone else. Their pride in their service, and its reputation and tradition for fair dealing and unfailing rectitude, makes them as determined as anybody that these errors should not recur. I want to make it quite clear that no civil servant in any Department sought to bring pressure to bear on the Minister when he was taking his decisions about disciplinary action.
I was as impressed as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery was with the passage in the Woods Report which deals with the general situation. I hope that the House will bear with me if I read just one part of it again:
It is the more necessary that the Civil Servant should bear constantly in mind that the citizen has a right to expect, not only that his affairs will be dealt with effectively and expeditiously, but also that his personal feelings, no less than his rights as an individual, will be sympathetically and fairly considered. We think the admitted shortcomings in this respect are the main cause of such loss of public confidence as has resulted from the present case.


Again I want to say, because I have made inquiries and have been reassured by them, that the Civil Service since the war has tried very hard to inculcate a proper attitude of mind in civil servants, particularly because so many more civil servants have dealings with the public, or handle affairs in which private interests are at stake. That is the object of the training that is given, and this will go on and its importance will be emphasised.
On that basis, as I have tried to put it, the next point is: have the steps that were taken in regard to the persons involved been fair and equitable? I say that they have. I say that the Woods Committee was the right procedure. It did not seek to inquire afresh into matters covered by the Clark Report, but considered whether, in order to maintain public confidence in the administration of Departments, any of the officers whose conduct was called in question in the Report should be transferred.
The criteria were public interest, efficiency of the public service and fair treatment of individuals. I believe that the blend of public service and private business experience in the Committee was one with which the right hon. Gentleman was not at any rate prepared to quarrel. I believe that the Committee's careful, judicial but practical weighing of the position with regard to those five men will command respect and confidence.
I now want to call attention, because I think it important and fair to do so, to one other point. The very last words of the Woods Report are:
 … we think it material to record our strong impression that some part of the deficiencies disclosed in the handling of this case may have been due as much to the organisational relationship between the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Agricultural Land Commission and the Agricultural Land Service as to the faults of individuals.
It is fair that that should be said, because that is an organisational matter.
My right hon. Friend has arranged for a thorough investigation to be made into the organisation and methods employed within the Ministry and the Agricultural Land Commission for dealing with transactions in agricultural land. It will include the Agricultural Land Service both at headquarters and at provincial centres, and the task will be undertaken by Sir Arton Wilson and Mr. Allam. In

addition to that, as a result of the inquiry, further consideration will be given to the organisation of the Department and the function and organisation of the Land Commission.
I have a special reason for appreciating the importance of the Land Commission because, as hon. Members know, there is, the Welsh Sub-Commission which at the moment is engaged on most important work for me in regard to rural Wales. My right hon. Friend also mentioned that he was reviewing the organisation for administering Crown Lands.
As far as the people are concerned, I think we have come to a fair result. And the organisation, which the Woods Report says created difficulty, has also been dealt with.
The right hon. Gentleman dealt with the position of Messrs. Sanctuary and Sons. Again my right hon. Friend was right in saying that they are professional men with their expertise, and the proper person to inquire into their conduct was someone nominated by the President of the Chartered Surveyors Institution. That person gave a report on what I find—I state it quite frankly—a matter of great complexity, namely the proper method for approaching the question of dilapidations and the arguments on both sides. I tried to puzzle it out, as I am sure many people have done.
My right hon. Friend got expert opinion on that subject, and, in addition, despite the fact that that was favourable, he has taken into account what is stated in the Report. He has come to the conclusion—and I am sure that everyone would agree with it—that this firm should not deal with Crichel Down land in the future. It will be for the Crown Lands, who will have their new permanent Commissioner, to decide whom they should employ
I want to come to the points which were made by the right hon Member for Belper. One of them is connected with what has been called, erroneously, in my view—

Mr. H. Morrison: If I may interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman—and I am not doing it in a spirit of offence—I hope that he will answer the question why there was the transfer to the Crown Lands organisation.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I will do so now if that suits the right hon. Gentleman's convenience. I was going to deal with that point next. My right hon. Friend said that he wanted the Ministry to dispense with the ownership of this land. He also knew that Crown Lands were looking for an investment in land and that where their money has come from investment in land, they are limited to re-investing it in land. As is stated in paragraph 9 of the conclusions of Sir Andrew Clark's report, the Minister wanted to ensure that the land would be equipped, that a suitable tenant would be found, and that the land would be supervised. As Sir Andrew Clark says, these things being the combined needs of his policy, probably the only instrument to carry out that policy effectively would have been Crown Lands. That is the reason why it was done.
The right hon. Member for Belper first dealt with what he called the change of policy. I checked the words used by my right hon. Friend, and I commend the right hon. Gentleman to look at them tomorrow. What my right hon. Friend said was that there had been a substantial improvement in the food situation. He did not actually use the words, but there was a clear implication that we were not in the stage of a sort of siege economy, and siege prices, where it was necessary to get production at any cost and at any price. He went on to say that it was possible to contemplate taking actions in the interest of liberty and freedom.
That is not a new policy or a change of policy. My right hon. Friend said that it is no part of this Government's philosophy that the State should continue to own and manage agricultural land where it is in a satisfactory condition for private ownership. In that respect there has been no change of policy, and certainly no diminution of the importance of food production, or any attempt to infringe or eat into the provisions of the Agriculture Acts.
The second point made by the right hon. Member for Belper was whether selecting one Q.C. to conduct an inquiry without the provisions of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act was a suitable way of dealing with the matter. I can only say, from 30 years' experience, that I have been quite often in inquiries of that sort and I have never found that the

fact that the privilege of a witness is theoretically a little more limited has ever prevented him from stating his views frankly and freely. Moreover, it has the great advantage of being more flexible and, if necessary, more informal than the procedure which is suggested as an alternative.
I would put this point and ask the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South to do no more than consider it. I think that it is one of the problems of Government, and I know that he is interested in them. When a Government appoint an inquiry, whatever the complexion of the Government, I think that they ought to be bound by findings of fact which the person who holds the inquiry comes to, unless some new evidence is discovered the existence of which he did not realise—[HON. MEMBERS: "The Select Committee on Members' Expenses."] If hon. Members had allowed me to finish, the occasion of their laughter would not have arisen, because I was going on to say that when the findings of fact are made nothing can deprive the Government of the duty and responsibility of forming their opinions and making the decisions which must be made.
I come to the third point the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper made, and that was, is there anything wrong with the change that is being made with regard to compulsorily acquired land. Every citizen of good will sees his land go in time of emergency for Government requirements with as much good will as he can muster; but it is taken for a specific purpose, for a specific need of the State. When that purpose is exhausted, when that need is past, what is wrong, on any consideration of morality or justice, in allowing the person from whom the land was taken to have the chance of getting it back?
It was made clear by my right hon. Friend that the price should be the current market price fixed by the same person who fixed the price at which the land was bought, the district valuer. I do not believe that that can be construed by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when they have time to think it over, as a sinister change. It is only the reinforcement once again of the need of justice to individuals. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] I put this to you,


Mr. Speaker, that it is part of the public interest in this country that there should be justice to private individuals.
I want to say one further word, and that is with regard to the present tenant, Mr. Tozer. As my right hon. Friend said, I think it is right that opportunity should be given to Commander Marten to purchase the land, but it must be subject to the tenancy and the requirements of the tenancy. I have tried to deal with the three points with which I started. I believe that we have taken

the necessary actions, and I ask the House to accept them.

Mr. Herbert W. Bowden: rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put accordingly. "That this House do now adjourn."

The House divided: Ayes, 266; Noes, 297.

Division No. 204.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)


Adams, Richard
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Keenan, W


Albu, A. H.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Kenyon, C.


Allan, Arthur (Bosworth)
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
King, Dr. H. M.


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Fernyhough, E.
Lawson, G. M.


Awbery, S. S.
Fienburgh, W.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)


Baird, J.
Follick, M.
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)


Balfour, A.
Foot, M. M.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Forman, J. C.
Lindgren, G. S.


Bartley, P.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J
Freeman, John (Watford)
Logan, D. G.


Bence, C. R.
Freeman, Peter (Newport)
MacColl, J. E.


Benn, Hon. Wedgwood
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N
McGhee, H. G.


Benson, G.
Gibson, C. W.
McGovern, J


Beswick, F.
Glanville, James
McInnes, J.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P C
McLeavy, F.


Bing, G. H. C.
Greenwood, Anthony
McNeill, Rt. Hon. H.


Blackburn, F.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Blenkinsop, A.
Grey, C. F.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)


Boardman, H.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mann, Mrs. Jean


Bowen, E. R
Grimond, J.
Manuel, A. C.


Bowles, F. G.
Hale, Leslie
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Mason, Roy


Brockway, A. F.
Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)
Mayhew, C. P.


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Hamilton, W. W.
Mellish, R. J.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Hannan, W.
Messer, Sir F.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hardy, E. A.
Mikardo, Ian


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Hargreaves, A.
Mitchison, G. R.


Burton, Miss F. E.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)
Monslow, W.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.J
Hastings, S.
Moody, A. S.


Callaghan, L. J.
Hayman, F. H.
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.


Carmichael, J.
Healey, Denis (Leeds, S.E.)
Morley, R.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Champion, A. J.
Herbison, Miss M.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)


Chapman, W. D.
Hewitson, Capt. M
Mort, D. L.


Chetwynd, G R
Hobson, C. R.
Moyle, A.


Clunie, J,
Holman, P.
Mulley, F. W.


Coldrick, W.
Holmes, Horace
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Holt, A. F.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J


Cove, W. G.
Houghton, Douglas
O'Brien, T.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hoy, J. H.
Oldfield, W. H.


Crosland, C. A. R.
Hubbard, T. F.
Oliver, G. H.


Crossman, R. H. S.
Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Orbach, M.


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Oswald, T.


Daines, P.
Hushes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Padley, W. E.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Paget, R. T.


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)


Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Palmer, A. M. F.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Irvine, A.J. (Edge Hill)
Pannell, Charles


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Pargiter, G. A.


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Parker, J.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Janner, B.
Parkin, B. T


Deer, G.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Paton, J.


Delargy, H. J.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Peart, T. F.


Dodds, N. N.
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Donnelly, D. L.
Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Porter, G.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Proctor, W. T.


Edelman, M.
Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Pryde, D. J.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Pursey, Comdr. H.




Rankin, John
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Reeves, J.
Sparks, J. A.
Wells, William (Walsall)


Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
Steele, T.
West, D. G.


Reid, William (Camlachie)
Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Rhodes, H.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Richards, R.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Stross, Dr. Barnett
Wigg, George


Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B


Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Swingler, S. T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Sylvester, G. O.
Willey, F. T.


Ross, William
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Williams, David (Neath)


Royle, C.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Shackleton, E. A. A.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'll'y)


Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Short, E. W.
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)
Wilson, fit. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Shurmer, P. L. E.
Thornton, E.
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Timmons, J.
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Tomney, F.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Skeffington, A. M.
Turner-Samuels, M.
Wyatt, W. L.


Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Yates, V. F.


Slater, J. (Durham, Sedgefield)
Usborne, H. C.
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Viant, S. P.



Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)
Wallace, H. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Snow, J. W.
Warbey, W. N.
Mr. Bowden and Mr. Pearson.


Sorensen, R. W.
Weitzman, D.





NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Higgs, J. M. C.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)


Alport, C. J. M.
Davidson, Viscountess
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Deedes, W. F.
Hirst, Geoffrey


Amory, Rt. Hon. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Digby, S. Wingfield
Holland-Martin, C. J.


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hollis, M. C.


Arbuthnot, John
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hope, Lord John


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Donner, Sir P. W.
Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Horobin, I. M.


Baldwin, A. E.
Drayson, C. B.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence


Banks, Col. C.
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. Sir T. (Richmond)
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)


Barber, Anthony
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)


Barlow, Sir John
Duthie, W. S.
Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir D. M.
Hulbert, Wing Cdr. N. J.


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Hurd, A. R.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Erroll, F. J.
Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Fell, A.
Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Finlay, Graeme
Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.


Bennett, William (Woodside)
Fisher, Nigel
Iremonger, T. L.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Birch, Nigel
Fletcher, Sir Waller (Bury)
Jennings, Sir Roland


Bishop, F. P.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Johnson, Eric (Bleckley)


Black, C. W.
Ford, Mrs. Patricia
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)


Boothby, Sir R. J. G.
Fort, R.
Jones, A. (Hall Green)


Bossom, Sir A. C.
Foster, John
Kaberry, D.


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Kerby, Capt. H. B.


Boyle, Sir Edward
Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
Kerr, H. W.


Braine, B. R.
Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
Lambert, Hon. G.


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Galbraith, Rt. Hon. T. D. (Pollok)
Lambton, Viscount


Braithwaite, Sir Gurney
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Gammans, L. D.
Leather, E. H. C.


Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Brooman-White, R. C.
George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)


Browne, Jack (Govan)
Glover, D.
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.


Bullard, D. G.
Godber, J. B.
Lindsay, Martin


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Linstead, Sir H. N.


Burden, F. F. A.
Gough, C. F. H.
Llewellyn, D. T.


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Gower, H. R.
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)


Campbell, Sir David
Graham, Sir Fergus
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)


Carr, Robert
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.


Cary, Sir Robert
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Longden, Gilbert


Channon, H.
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Low, A. R. W.


Churchill, Rt Hon Sir Winston
Harden, J. R. E.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Hare, Hon. J. H.
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Clyde, Rt. Hon. J. L.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.


Cole, Norman
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
McAdden, S. J.


Colegate, W. A.
Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.


Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Harvey, Ian (Harlow, E.)
Macdonald, Sir Peter


Cooper, Son. Ldr. Albert
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
McKibbin, A. J.


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Hay, John
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)


Graddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Maclean, Fitzroy


Crouch, R. F.
Heath, Edward
Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)


Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)







Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Pitman, I. J.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Pitt, Miss E. M.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Powell, J. Enoch
Studholme, H. G.


Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir Reginald
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Summers, G. S.


Markham, Major Sir Frank
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Sutcliffe, Sir Harold


Marlowe, A. A. H.
Profumo, J. D.
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Marples, A. E.
Ramsden, J. E.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Rayner, Brig. R
Teeling, W.


Maude, Angus
Redmayne, M.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)


Maudling, R.
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Maydon, Lt.-Comdr S. L C
Remnant, Hon. P
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Medlicott, Brig. F.
Renton, D. L. M.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Mellor, Sir John
Ridsdale, J. E.
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)


Molson, A. H. E.
Robertson, Sir David
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Tilney, John


Moore, Sir Thomas
Robson-Brown, W.
Touche, Sir Gordon


Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Turner, H. F. L.


Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Roper, Sir Harold
Turton, R. H.


Nabarro, G. D. N.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Neave, Airey
Russell, R. S.
Vane, W. M. F.


Nicholls, Harmar
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Vosper, D. F.


Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Nield, Basil (Chester)
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. Marylebone)


Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Scott, R. Donald
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Nugent, G. R. H.
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Wall, Major Patrick


Nutting, Anthony
Shepherd, William
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Oakshott, H. D.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Odey, G. W.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


O'Neill, Hon. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)
Watkinson, H. A.


Ormsby-Goro, Hon. W. D.
Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)
Webbe, Sir H. (London &amp; Westminster)


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Snadden, W. McN.
Wellwood, W.


Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Soames, Capt. C.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-super-Mare)
Spearman, A. C- M.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Osborne, C.
Speir, R. M.
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Page, R. G.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Partridge, E.
Spens, Rt. Hon. Sir P. (Kensington, S.)
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
Wills, G.


Perkins, Sir Robert
Stevens, Geoffrey
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)
Wood, Hon. R.


Peyton, J. W. W.
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)



Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Storey, S.
Mr. Buchan-Hepburn and




Sir Cedric Drewe.


Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: My hon. Friends on this side, much as they were distressed with some of the provisions in this Bill, felt that the needs of the Isle of Man were such that the Bill should have an unopposed Committee stage. The House would be failing in its duty, however, if it did not consider for a few moments whether we ought to pass at all a Bill of this nature.
If I can put the thing in a nutshell—[HON. MEMBERS: "Impossible."]—the issue is that a certain amount of money is required to carry on the affairs of the Isle of Man and how best it should be raised. If we are to tax the people of the Isle of Man less—that is a question in which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson) will also be interested—why we should decide that the one thing to tax less than anything else is beer? That seems to me to be a curious proposition, and it is a curious proposition that the House should endorse it automatically.
The prosperity of the Isle of Man depends upon the tourist industry. There are in the Isle of Man a great many unemployed. It is not possible in this country to do much for the unemployed, because of very high defence costs; but that does not apply in the Isle of Man. We know that the Isle of Man pays only £1 14s. per head defence costs against about £32 in this country. If they did not have to pay for defence why should they not pay a better rate for the unemployed? Why should they not start a pilot scheme for the unemployed by seeing that they get rather better rates in the Isle of Man. or, alternatively, if there is a need for better social services in the Isle of Man, why should the British people who visit the island not get a corresponding advantage?
Why should there be a Bill which does nothing other than allow beer and dried fruits to go into the Isle of Man rather

cheaper than they come into England? What is the reason for this discrimination? What is the principle upon which the Tynwald decided that the only two items which should be a bit cheaper were beer and dried fruits? Why, for instance, are a lot of tourists who might be attracted overlooked?
It is not only the beer drinkers who are wanted as tourists in the Isle of Man—and here I part company with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North—but why not spirit drinkers as well? After all, if people wish to have alcoholic refreshment in the Isle of Man they might wish to have whisky, so why should they not get it at a cheaper rate? Why should there be a cheap rate for beer? Why should there be this discrimination against Scotland? Why should Scotch whisky have to pay the same duty in England while beer from Burton gets in at half the rate?

Colonel Alan Gomme-Duncan: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman realise that the best Scottish beer, like Younger's, is better than any in the world and that it goes into the Isle of Man on the same terms?

Mr. Bing: I appreciate what the hon. and gallant Gentleman says, but that particular beer has a great family tradition behind it. I would not think that the influence of the Home Office in past days had anything to do with that particular discrimination, but I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be with me when I say that Scotch whisky is almost as good as Irish whisky. I hope that in this I shall have the support of hon. Members from Northern Ireland. Why should Northern Ireland be penalised in regard to the Isle of Man? After all, Northern Ireland, with the rest of Ireland, has paid a tribute for many years—

Mr. Alan McKibbin: The reason why the duty is the same is because the people would want to smuggle Irish whisky out if there was a difference, and they would not want to smuggle beer.

Mr. Bing: I think there is a great deal in what the hon. Gentleman says. The only way to get some English beer drunk is to smuggle it into a tied house.
After all, Ireland, and Northern Ireland in particular, has a special call on the Isle of Man because it fell on Northern Ireland, as the most prosperous part of Ireland at that particular time, to pay the greater part of the annuity of £2,000 which was fixed on Ireland on behalf of—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): I do not see anything about that in this Bill.

Mr. Bing: That is quite true, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Unfortunately, the whole history of this matter is not set out in the Bill because otherwise it would not be passed, but what I was trying to deal with was the general principle which this Bill embodies, which seems to me to be entirely mistaken.
Why should we decide to reduce the duty on beer and not reduce the duty on whisky? Why should it be one of the activities of the party opposite to impose the full duty on one kind of drink and half duty on another kind?
May I draw your attention, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to the line in the Bill on which I am addressing the House? You will find that line 31 of Clause 5 (1) re-enacts Section 3 of the 1950 Act which fixes the duty at approximately half the rate here. I was also referring to line 11 of subsection (1) which re-enacts Section 2 of the Act of 1948. That, of course, is the Act which imposes the full English duty so far as whisky is concerned, and which merely imposes half duty so far as beer is concerned.
I do not see the Patronage Secretary here but, if he comes, I hope he will not move the Closure tonight before his right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has had an opportunity to speak or we have had an opportunity of some observations from our own Front Bench. I cannot believe that Tynwald, without assistance or suggestion from the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends, would on their own initiative have enacted Clause 4 (1), which deals with the duty on chicory.
If one studies the accounts of the Isle of Man, one sees that they have done comparatively well in the last year out of chicory because it is the only item in which they are in credit. In some

mysterious way the last audited accounts of the Isle of Man show that £1 was credited to the island in the sense that the drawback on chicory was greater than the amount of duty. If that is indeed so, it is a fortunate position in which the Isle of Man is placed, and how it arose no doubt the Minister will explain and why, therefore, there was no reason that they should enact this Clause.
The only reason why it has been enacted is that they were persuaded by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends in a policy which will be familiar to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McKibbin) and which is known as the policy of step by step, which means, in regard to Northern Ireland at any rate, one step forward, two steps back. This is an idea of adapting completely the legislation of the Isle of Man to the British Customs legislation. If that is so, we are entitled to know the policy before we finally part from this Bill and this, we are told, is the last time we shall be allowed to discuss the policy upon which the Government approach the idea of the Customs of the Isle of Man.
One of the reasons we have for rejecting this Measure is that we think we should consider the Customs of the Isle of Man in relation to the condition of the people in the island. So far as we are concerned on this side of the House, we believe we should consider not the condition of the wealthy people of the island but the people who are in a poorer condition there, who have not gone there as foreigners from outside, but who were born and bred there. We think it is the duty of this House drastically to reduce all the duties in the Isle of Man because it would force the Isle of Man Government to put up the Income Tax to balance their budget.
Why should we not force them to put up their Income Tax to balance their budget? We would then provide for the people who are as much in need of holidays as anybody else, the workers in Lancashire and in the North-East corner of England and in the North of Ireland. We would provide them with a really cheap holiday resort, because Customs duty in the Isle of Man would be far lower. Why should we in this House merely cater in the Isle of Man for the beer drinkers?

Mr. F. H. Hayman: Does my hon. and learned Friend not realize that Manx cats drink milk, which is non-alcoholic?

Mr. Bing: That is one of the reasons why they are encouraged. They, at least, have learned sense.
The Bill, in effect, states that in relation to taxation we will give the Isle of Man cheap beer and nothing else and that that will make the Isle of Man a holiday resort. I do not think that that makes for a balanced holiday resort. If it is accepted in principle that there should be a reduced beer duty in the Isle of Man I see no reason in principle why there should not be a reduced duty on spirits or wine. I should like to know on what grounds beer has this preferential character, other than the principle that the party opposite should always support the brewers. Why should we not consider a reduction of the tax on cosmetics and of the Purchase Tax on sporting equipment?
The provisions of Clause 5 (2) continue all the existing duties and if we are continuing the existing duties that is one reason for rejecting the Bill. We ought to have placed on the Order Paper a series of Amendments, but my hon. Friends and I decided against that because we did not want to take up too much time of the House. Looking at the matter as one of principle, why should people who have a sporting holiday in the Isle of Man have to pay the same Purchase Tax on sporting equipment as they have to pay in England while they can buy beer at half price? Surely we should consider what are the things which the poorest people in the Isle of Man need.

Mr. David Logan: Kippers.

Mr. Bing: There is no duty on kippers. All that the Customs duties provide is £5 a year for the admiral of the herring fleet. To raise that salary an argument might be advanced in favour of raising these duties.
This is the last debate that we shall have on the Bill and we ought to have from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury a considered statement of the principles upon which taxation is decided

in the Isle of Man. The principles that would be endorsed on this side of the House are those which would ensure that those items which form the staple of the budget of the least well off people should be those which should be first relieved of tax. Why have the Government not pursued that policy?
It may be said that the Tynwald has not pursued it. If so, we should be told why the Tynwald came to this decision. We do not want the Isle of Man to become merely a kind of retreat for people who want to avoid Income Tax and have that happen with the connivance of the party opposite. We want to see that the poorest people in the Isle of Man benefit from the fact that the level of taxation there is not so high as here.
On that, perhaps I might be allowed to quote to the House a letter which I have received from a very frank gentleman who says that he does not wish his name to be given. He is living in Jersey, and he apparently thinks that the views which I express rather imperil the position of Income Tax payers in Jersey. He says:
It is true that Jersey has a large population of people who retire here to benefit from the lower taxation.
He then goes on to say:
To prevent the citizens of the United Kingdom from settling in Jersey is the legal prerogative of the British Parliament.
Of course, it is not.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Whether it is or whether it is not does not arise now.

Mr. Bing: With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it arises in the sense that it is not the job of the Government to prevent citizens from going where they want to go, but to utilise the powers which belong to this House to see that people who wish to avoid Income Tax are not provided with a place to which they can escape, but to use the powers of the House to relieve suffering and distress wherever they exist, and where we have the legal right so to do.
Therefore, it seems to me and to many of my hon. Friends that this matter has been approached in the wrong way. I make no party point about it, because, perhaps, we on this side have been at fault, too, but the party opposite were at fault when in Opposition for not raising the question before, because we know


that they are deeply interested in the old-age pensioners. But the Tories, when in Opposition, never even thought of them in the Isle of Man.
Why did we not recast the whole type of legislation in regard to the Isle of Man when we had power so to do in order to see that the worst off people get the benefit of any alteration in taxation which may take place? It seems to me a scandal that we should pass a Bill which puts Customs revenue at such a level as to enable the Isle of Man to have a very low Income Tax. That is what we are being invited to do.
We ought to pause before we do that, because whether or not this is the last Bill which will be discussed by the House, it is obvious that the Government will dictate the form of taxation in the Isle of Man. When we come to dictate it, whether it is discussable in this House or not, it should surely be based on the fact that the Isle of Man should pay the same Income Tax this year, and that whatever relaxations in taxation are given should be in direct taxation and in reducing the price of things which the poorest people in the island require. Secondly, we should reduce the duties on the commodities which the holidaymakers going to the island require to buy.
It is upon those broad principles, I suggest, that it should be the duty of this House to proceed if we have any Isle of Man Bills in the future, or if there are any negotiations with the island to do away with the Bill. I think that we are entitled to an explanation from the Government as to why they have singled out dried fruit and beer on which to impose a lower duty than on anything else. I hope that this time we shall get that explanation.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. James Hudson: The researches of the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) always fill me with admiration, even though, at times, he advances views about beer and spirits which are more in conformity with his own tastes than with mine. I dare say that a good deal will have to be said about that before I finish with the proposal before us. He has made clear to me that the Government have certainly stimulated the Isle of Man

at some point into making preparation for its scheme of taxation. If left to itself. I doubt whether it would ever have thought of it.
I am astonished to learn of the arrangement about the repayment of duty on beer suggested by these proposals. I do not believe that public opinion in the island would have been likely to have arrived at that proposal. It certainly would not want to arrive at the parallel suggestion that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch presented, namely, that something should be done about spirits.
In the Isle of Man there is a strong and effective temperance movement, represented in the churches and elsewhere, which would not be likely to have put forward any such proposals as these. I do not believe that the Tynwald, whose rights I had the privilege of defending when the Customs duty of the island came up for discussion in the House, 30 years ago, would have pin them forward.
Unless the Financial Secretary to the Treasury can show the House that there is a case for this, based on evidence from the island. I do not believe that any proof can be offered to show why there is a desire for a Measure of this sort. I can guess at some reasons, and I believe I would be right in saying that in this instance it is the brewers talking through the Tory Party, and looking for an opportunity to sell beer more cheaply in the island although he may not be able to get round the stricter licensing laws in this country.

Mr. Dudley Williams: On a point of order. Is not the hon. Gentleman the secretary of the Temperance Society, and should he not declare an interest?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Bing: Do not the majority of the members of the Parliamentary Committee of the Brewers' Society sit on the Government side of the House?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Is not the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) free to make a speech alone the lines he has indicated in his intervention? So far as we are concerned we shall be happy to hear him.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member tries to talk about that I shall rule him out of order.

Mr. Hudson: The hon. Gentleman's intervention was intended to be insulting and may have been received as such. I accept it in that spirit. I am known in this House to be completely on the side of those who are struggling against beer drinking habits. I am on the side of the residents of the Isle of Man, and the members of the temperance movement in that island, in what I know would be their protest when this proposal comes before them.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Can the hon. Gentleman give any Biblical or other authority to support the argument that temperance and teetotalism are the same thing?

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: On a point of order. Is it in order to discuss the ethics and morals—or otherwise—of temperance or anti-temperence? And, if it is, can we not discuss the whole question of the gravity of beers sold in the Isle of Man?

Mr. Speaker: If anyone gets on to that I shall stop him.

Mr. Hudson: Discussion is going on about my right to speak on the fundamental objection to allowing beer to be sold anywhere—whether in the House of Commons, the Isle of Man or other privileged places—at a cheaper rate than our licensing and financial arrangements allow.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch has made it very clear that the main part of the proposal before us is concerned with the selling in the Isle of Man of beer at cheaper rates, because of the lower tax provided for by this Bill. I was saying that that is an indication not of what the Isle of Man could be expected to want but, as I have frequently said, of the running in harness of the Tory Party and the brewing interests.
I object to such an arrangement not only for the sake of the residents on the island but of those who take their holidays there. One of the things that delights me is to discover that people who used to find their pleasures in

drunkenness at holiday times at places where drink was too readily provided are now being turned to beauty spots and other places where drink is not the consideration at all. It is because I think that the Isle of Man ought to have protection against the drinking habit which is, in part, provided by the rate of tax imposed that I want to see a continuance of that rate.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite can be expected to keep up a running commentary, but on this matter I have a case, as the House well knows. I have just as much right to put it, even though I do not do so with the same blatant voice as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) who is causing so much of the interruption in the hope of preventing me completing my argument. I shall complete it, none the less, with this statement. There should not be made at this moment—

Mr. Nabarro: rose—

Mr. Hudson: I shall not give way in any circumstances. The hon. Gentleman must make his speech in his own way and not try to prevent me making mine—as I am trying to do. He must observe the ordinary rules of the House if he wishes to put forward his argument.
There should not be either in the interests of the Isle of Man or of those who go there from this country, the encouragement that is undoubtedly offered by the proposals here made. I dare say that there is one class of persons in the Isle of Man, the type of people who would be expected to run in harness there with the brewers.
I am, of course, referring to certain types of hotel keeper and lodging house keeper who, with greater facilities in the Isle of Man, because of different legislation, make available to visitors the beer and other intoxicating drinks which come their way. [An HON. MEMBER: "And they are open all day."] Yes, I know that from having visited the Isle of Man, and I expect it is still the case. That sort of arrangement operates to provide certain types of hotel keepers with this greater facility, although I know it is not the desire—and I know this beautiful island very well—of the general majority of the people there, nor is it in keeping with public opinion of the island.
I should like to know, therefore, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch wants to know, what has led the Government to put this proposal forward. We put the responsibility entirely on the Government, and we say that the Government have used this opportunity, as they have used every opportunity, if there is a loophole, to let the liquor interests improve their conditions. That is what the Government have done ever since they have been in power, and tonight we have another step which the Government have taken for the assistance of the brewers, and the interests which the brewers know so well how to exploit.
I object most strongly to the proposal. My hon. and learned Friend takes a very different view from myself on the actual rights and wrongs of the drink question, but I am very glad that he has pointed out so clearly what is really being done under this measure.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I intended to intervene in the debate on Friday, during the Second Reading, because I thought then that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Horn-church (Mr. Bing), in his otherwise well-informed speech, had been somewhat ungenerous to the Younger Pitt. But the sudden incursion of the Tory Party which led to the termination of the debate means that my historical observations would now be out of order, and contemporary historians must rely on what my hon. and learned Friend has said. I would, however, warn them that they will be led into grave error should they attempt to publish observations based upon recent interpretations and before I am able to speak during next year's Second Reading debate on this Bill. I then hope to give the true facts to the world.
The termination of the discussion on Friday means that we are now limited to debating only what is in the Bill; and, furthermore, discussing that in terms which may seem a little unfair to the Isle of Man. There are those of us who wanted to develop the case from the point of view of the island as well as from the point of view of this House, for here we are dealing with the rights of two sovereign States. But we can only talk

about that in a way which affects us and we cannot do justice to great difficulties on Third Reading; we cannot do justice to claims which ought to be made.
However, I can say this before the Third Reading is passed: that when we discussed the matter about two years ago the Financial Secretary was rather coy on the subject. Hon. Members may recall that it was a discussion to some extent in vacuo because we had not then the relevant information and it was because of the protest which some of us made two years ago that there has been some improvement and documents are now available in the Library from which we can get some information.
It was only in the course of a long discussion that we got the information given reductantly by the Treasury that the payment from the Isle of Man was still of the order of £10,000 a year as their contribution out of the moneys that we are now levying and the tax that we are now paying, while the revenue of the Isle of Man under this Bill was about £2 million a year. Of course, those figures are incomplete. They do not take into account any of the expenses which the island has to bear in making provision for education, and so on.
That the situation bristles with anomalies no one can doubt. The very considerable variation in Income Tax has its own anomalies. It means that the Isle of Man can offer better terms to teachers, police officers and others because they are subject to less tax on the appropriate Burnham scales and the appropriate police scales, and so we have an unhappy form of differentiation. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch has dug out several instances of differentiation in the Customs connection and in the rates of levy of tax, to some of which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson) has referred.
We were told by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury two years ago that it was hoped that these long negotiations were being brought to a conclusion. They had been initiated in 1949. The relevant accounts now show that there is kept in suspense account for the four years of negotiation £260,000 as compensation which the Isle of Man passed back to us for passing this Bill. If we


pass this Bill under the temporary arrangements which are still in suspense, we shall receive back a certain sum for the Customs that we collect for the Isle of Man.
We collect them not merely on the population of the Isle of Man but on the estimated holiday population, too, a notional figure; they are computed on that basis. They come to about £2 million, and we are told that the figure which has been computed on the basis of a 5 per cent. levy on the amount involved in this Bill, after making allowance for the cost of collection of £27,000, would come to £98,000 this year. We should then have £358,000 in suspense account.
The relevant figures were given in answer to Questions that I put down on two occasions in the last 12 months. I put a Question on the relative figures of taxation on the basis of the cost of defence—the contribution to the existing cost of defence to the nation. The answer, which was given by the Financial Secretary, I think—or the Chancellor—was that the cost per head of defence in this country was about £31, and the contribution per head in taxation from the residents of the Isle of Man was £1 14s. When we looked at that figure of £1 14s. and multiplied it by the exact population of the Isle of Man, we found that the Financial Secretary had based that £1 14s. on the assumption that he was going to receive this £98,000 and the money in suspense account.
In other words, if we take the exact payment that has been made per person, we find that the actual taxation that is being borne at the moment by the inhabitants of the Isle of Man is more in the nature of 3s. per head. That is manifestly a very tremendous difference. As I say, we are limited to making the points of criticism and not to making some of the answers which are available, because they are, unfortunately, out of order.
The Isle of Man maintains a very high standard of education. It maintains an effective police force—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member should follow his own injunction and stick to those points which are in order in the Bill.

Mr. Hale: I am obliged, Sir. I was merely trying to explain to the audience across the Gangway the precise purport of my remarks, and perhaps I strayed for a moment outside the narrow ambit which I had carefully set myself, in order to elucidate the more difficult passages of the observations which I was making.
At any rate, that is the position. We have to consider year by year whether we should pass the Bill in this form, or whether these constitutional negotiations ought to be brought to a head before we pass the Bill again.
I want to say to the Financial Secretary that, if this unhappy Government remains in office for another 12 months, which, in view of recent events, appears singularly unlikely—we are losing them one by one instead of collectively, as we would like it—there will be very serious concern, if he comes to the House again, in 12 months' time, and says that these negotiations cannot be completed. We are hoping that by midnight the Prime Minister of France will, within a month, have done something of a very much more difficult nature than what this Government have tried to do over five years. Negotiations between two friendly Governments should not have taken five years.
It was rather alarming to have been told on Second Reading that a deputation was coming to this country to talk about it. When the Treasury, or the Home Office, or whoever it is that deals with this, sees the Isle of Man (Customs) Bill on the diary and decide they ought to think about it—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not in the Bill. It may have been remotely in order on Second Reading. It certainly is not on Third.

Mr. Hale: I speak under difficulties, Sir, because my memory is taking me back to my intended speech on Friday. But I dismiss it now completely from my mind.
I say to the Financial Secretary, as a lone voice of the unofficial opposition, that I hope we shall vote against this Third Reading. Many hon. Members will desire to reconsider it next year, if something is not done, and important constitutional negotiations are not brought to a conclusion and the House informed.

10.58 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Wiley: I do not wish to detain the House for long, but, as I am a newcomer to these matters, I should like to take the opportunity in case this should be the last opportunity we have. We have had so many promises about this matter being finally disposed of, that we really have no grounds for thinking that this is the last time we shall discuss it.
I have one or two points to raise because I am still confused about some of the matters which form the background to the Bill. The impression was created that this Bill depends upon the resolution of the Tynwald. Obviously, that is not true in any real sense. It is quite clear that the Tynwald resolutions are merely reflections of the decisions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think it is quite wrong to create the impression that the Isle of Man Legislature has a responsibility for what is being imposed on the people of the Isle of Man. I hope that the Financial Secretary will make quite clear that the Bill is a result of the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
I emphasise this, because it should be widely known and the Tynwald should not be embarrassed. It was for that reason that I urged that more information should be provided by the Government. I think we should know rather more about the discussions which are taking place, because it is quite clear, if we look at the OFFICIAL REPORT for last Friday, that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department was closured before he finished his speech. I should like to know just what the Joint Under-Secretary was going on to say when he was interrupted by his colleague on the Front Bench. I hope that it will be in order for the Financial Secretary to complete the remarks the Joint Under-Secretary was then making, because we are all interested in what he was saying. I certainly want much more reassurance that we are giving a Third Reading to such a Bill as this for the last time.
I should like something more than a resort to the maxim "Time enough." I have carefully re-read the speech of the Joint Under-Secretary, and it comes down to no more than that somebody is saying to someone else, "Time enough." The country is telling the Government, "You have had time enough," and it will see

from what has happened today that, no doubt before the year is out, we shall be rid of them. But we should have something definite and explicit about the intentions of the Government in relation to this type of Measure.

Mr. Speaker: It would not be in order to reply to the hon. Member's point in a Third Reading debate.

Mr. Willey: Then I shall immediately turn to the provisions of the Bill, Sir, and raise a few points upon them. We did not raise these matters during the Committee stage because we wished to expedite the progress of the Bill. Surely the provision with regard to chicory is a bad one in principle, when there is no prospect of raising any real revenue. This is carrying similarity with conditions in this country too far. It would have been far better to have disregarded this provision so far as the Isle of Man was concerned.

Mr. Douglas Glover: Can the hon. Member explain how it is possible to raise taxation when there is no prospect of any revenue?

Mr. Willey: The hon. Member had not the advantage of being with us on Friday last, and he has evidently neglected to read the OFFICIAL REPORT, because the Financial Secretary made it clear that no real revenue was to be raised from the Isle of Man in regard to this provision. I do not think I am being unjust to suggest that the purpose of the provision was to make something which we had imposed upon ourselves applicable also to the Isle of Man. I should have thought it would have been better to say that it was not worth while worrying about it, rather than to impose something which will have a negligible effect upon the Isle of Man.
The other point, which has been emphasised by previous speakers, is the question of the differential Customs duties. I think that that is also bad in principle. I can put, equally validly, two points of view upon this matter. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson) that it is bad to attract beer drinkers to a particular locality by differential duties. It is equally bad, from the other point of view, to siphon off the beer drinkers from the Lancashire seaside resorts, because many people believe that beer drinkers add a note of conviviality to those resorts which


may favour such places in catering for the tourist trade. In either case it is bad. I suspect that it is also bad in another respect, and that where such a differential is provided one gets bad beer. I have not had the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North of going to the Isle of Man—

Mr. J. Hudson: It is all bad.

Mr. Willey: —so I have not had an opportunity of seeing whether the beer is worse there than in the rest of the United Kingdom, but I suspect that it is. I suspect that it would be rather like the "near-beer" which is sold. Certainly, it will not be such good beer as that which bears full Customs duty. But whichever point we take, I think it is bad in principle. I do not think that we should any longer tolerate a differential in Customs duties applying to different parts of the United Kingdom.
Finally, I would merely mention that it is quite clear, from the financial arrangements, of which this Bill is a part, that there is an opportunity for Income Tax evasion. It is absolutely wrong to have different provisions for different parts of the United Kingdom. I hope that in the discussions which are taking place there will be a frank realisation of this difficulty on both sides, and that if those discussions are energetically pursued the hope expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Horn-church may be borne out.

11.5 p.m.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members being present—

11.6 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Surely we are to have a reply from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the very cogent speeches which have been made from this side of the House in the last three-quarters of an hour.
The speeches of my hon. Friends were very brief, and, considering how difficult it is to keep within the rules of order on the Third Reading of a Bill of this kind, I formed the impression that what they had to say was very much to the point. A great many of the arguments which they brought before the

House do need a reply from the Financial Secretary. That is doubly so when one remembers what the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said when we last debated this Bill, namely that this may be the last time that a Bill of this kind is before the House.
I intend, like my hon. Friends, to be commendably brief. I have no desire to detain the House, particularly as I know there is another Motion on the Order Paper, and I have not the slightest doubt that my hon. Friends on this side of the House, as well as hon. Gentlemen on the other side, will want to speak to it. It would be a pity if we stood too long between them and the Motion in the name of the late Minister of Agriculture.
We have laboured throughout this very short debate under the fear that the Patronage Secretary might be ordered in by the 1922 Committee to attempt to move the Closure. On Friday, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) was robbed of the opportunity of making what I think would have gone down in the annals of Parliament as a very historic speech. I say nothing about my own, which I afterwards had to tear up.

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but Friday is past and done with, and we cannot discuss that on the Third Reading.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: That is what we on this side of the House complain of, Sir, because a great deal was said on Friday which was very germane to the Isle of Man. We have now lost all opportunity of commenting on the very important speech which was made by the Joint Under-Secretary. I, however, bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to reiterate before I sit down that very cogent points that have been put by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). I think that the right hon. Gentleman should reply to them.
My memory of previous Sessions of Parliament does not go back as far as that of some other hon. Members whom I see in the Chamber now, but it goes back far enough for me to remember more


than one occasion, when hon. Members who now grace the other side of the House, and who then sat on this side, kept us up hour after hour discussing similar Bills to this. I can assure them that they then insisted on replies being made to points put by them during our discussions, and I think that the least the Financial Secretary should do tonight, and the courteous thing for him to do, is to reply to the arguments put in all seriousness from this side of the House, and which do demand an answer, in the interests of the taxpayers of this country and of those who reside in the Isle of Man.

11.11 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) need have no anxiety lest I fail to reply to this debate. I did not rise a moment ago because I wished to make sure the House had the privilege of hearing him, and I am sure the House is duly grateful. The hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing). during his entertaining canter around the perimeter of the rules of order, concentrated on that subject which, in the strictly Parliamentary sense, never fails to attract him, the subject of beer, and he, perfectly legitimately, as it is dealt with by Clause 5, referred to the continuation of the existing level of the beer duty which, as has been pointed out, is below that ruling in the United Kingdom.
I think, however, he made, perhaps rather unnecessarily, heavy weather about this. The proposal in the Bill is in the terms proposed by the resolution of Tynwald, and the House must also face the fact, of which, I think, one or two hon. Members were quite unaware, that this proposal does not reduce the beer duty. One or two hon. Members, I think, suggested it did. It merely maintains it at the existing level and at the level proposed by the Tynwald. We are, in passing this Bill, of course, exercising the final responsibility as to what Custom duties in the island should be, but it has been the custom of this House for many years to see to it that the proposals of the Tynwald are given proper weight, as those of the representatives of the island. For that reason, I do not think it is necessary for me to detain the

House with a lengthy argument why the beer duty should be maintained at this level.
I think the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson), who, I am sorry to see, is not in his place, got unduly and unnecessarily excited when he suggested that the maintenance of the beer duties at this level was due to some alliance between my hon. Friends on this side of the House and the brewing interests. If that is proved, it is a rather curious reflection that the state of affairs, to which he objected, with the beer duties at a lower level on the island than on the mainland, has been the state of affairs for a good many years, including all the years in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley was responsible for conducting identical Bills through this House. Therefore, if my hon. Friends are in this curious alliance, so is the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. and right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench. I think that deals with the delusions that appear to affect the hon. Member for Ealing, North.
When the hon. Member goes on to say that this differentiation embodied in the Bill was not the wish of the people of the island, I must confess that I think that the views of the inhabitants of the island are better expressed in the resolutions of Tynwald, their Parliament, than by the views, however honestly held, of the hon. Member for Ealing, North.
On the other hand, the view of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), that the contribution of the island to defence costs is inadequate, seems to me to be a reason for passing the Bill and for securing the continuation of these duties in the island for the year that is to come.
The House is now at Third Reading. It has the decision of commending the Bill or throwing it out, and the only effect of throwing it out would be to deprive the island of a large part of its revenue. To do that, as suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Horn-church, in order to force the island to put up its Income Tax, would be a breach of all the understandings that have existed as to our treatment of the island and its say in the management of its own affairs, and I cannot believe it was intended seriously.
The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) suggested that this Measure was imposed on the island. The Bill embodies the resolutions of the island's own assembly. His other point related to chicory, and he took the line that there was no point in imposing taxation where, in fact, the revenue would be negligible. As I said on Second Reading, he is quite right in suggesting that the revenue would be negligible, but it is a highly convenient and sensible arrangement, where no particular interests of the island are involved, if they see fit to adjust their Customs Duties to the same level as in the United Kingdom. In any case, the collection of this duty is undertaken by the United Kingdom Customs, and different rates of duty merely cause unnecessary inconvenience, and I should have thought he would have welcomed the helpful suggestion of the Tynwald that the island's duties should be brought into line with those of the United Kingdom in our own Finance Bill.
For those reasons, it does seem to me that the House would be well advised to follow the established practice, now that these proposals are embodied in the Bill after consideration of the resolutions of Tynwald—although we may differ as to the precise steps we would have taken in this direction had we initiated the matter—and give effect to the island's proposals and secure by the passing of this Bill the grant of these Customs revenues for the coming year.

Mr. Stephen Swingler: Would the Financial Secretary care to explain, in the case of chicory, what has been the procedure followed by the Tynwald? Does it not show that it does not pass these resolutions and does not act on its own initiative but at the instigation of the Treasury, as in the case of chicory? Does that not make a farce of the argument that this Bill is based on the resolutions of Tynwald?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I really cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that, because a friendly body such as the Tynwald in this friendly island takes helpful action, it is only doing so because it has been told to do so. I have a much higher regard for the desire to co-operate and be helpful which they have displayed for several years.

11.18 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Buchan-Hepburn): rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE ACT (EXTENSION ORDER)

11.20 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I beg to move,
That the Agriculture Act (Part I) Extension of Period Order, 1954, dated 6th July, 1954, a copy of which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.
This is a formal matter—

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: On a point of order. This Motion is down in the name of a Minister of the Crown, and, indeed, it is moved on those grounds. But we were told today that the Minister in question had resigned his office. In these circumstances, it would surely be quite wrong, Mr. Speaker, that an order which can only be moved by virtue of its being moved by a Minister of the Crown should be so moved in the name of a Minister who is no longer a Minister.

Mr. Speaker: I have the grasp of the hon. and learned Member's point, but there is nothing in it, because what I have heard is that the Minister has submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister who has forwarded it to Her Majesty, and we have not yet heard that it has been accepted. There is another point, which is that any Minister can move a Motion standing in the name of any other Minister, and I called upon Mr. Nugent to move it.

Mr. George Wigg: You have just said, Mr. Speaker, that it is competent for a Minister to move a Motion standing in the name of any other Minister, and "any other Minister," I should have thought, were the operative words. It is officially announced on the


tape machines that the Minister of Agriculture has resigned. He is no longer a Minister, and, therefore, in the terms of your own Ruling, Sir, another Minister cannot move a Motion standing in the name of someone who is no longer a Minister.

Mr. Speaker: I have dealt with the point. I have no knowledge of what is on the tape machines, and I am not bound by it.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: May I put this further point to you, Mr. Speaker, and through you to the Government Front Bench? Would it not be much more seemly, in view of the fact that the responsible Minister has resigned—whether or not Her Majesty has yet accepted the resignation—that the Government should not rush to pass an order of this kind before, as it were, the body is cold? Would it not be better to leave the Motion over for another time?

Mr. Speaker: That has nothing to do with me. The Motion is quite a proper one. I have called upon Mr. Nugent to move it.

Mr. Wigg: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, though you have no knowledge of what is on the tape machines, may I recall that on a matter of privilege which I raised on 19th December, you found it possible to have knowledge of messages which had come from Nairobi. There seems to be an inconsistency regarding the Ruling which you gave then, and the one which you have now given.

Mr. Speaker: There may appear to be an inconsistency, but the circumstances in the two cases are entirely different.

Mr. Stephen Swingler: May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on this point? If it is true that the right hon. Gentleman's resignation has been accepted, it then follows that this Motion is not down in the name of a Minister of the Crown, and, therefore, it cannot be moved. I should like to ask your guidance as to whether my reasoning is correct on that point.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is asking me to answer a hypothetical question. That I must decline to do.

Mr. Nugent: As I was saying, this is a formal matter. The purpose of the

Order is to extend for a further year the operation of Section 4 of the Agriculture Act, 1947. The Act originally provided that the life of Section 4 should be limited to three years unless it were extended from year to year by an Order of this kind. Such Orders have been made annually since 1950. The last of these extended the period of operation of the Section until 5th August this year, and we propose that it should be continued until 5th August, 1955.
Section 4 of the Act is concerned with the making of arrangements for providing guaranteed prices or assured markets for the products included in the First Schedule to the Act. It gives the Minister the power to modify the existing arrangement if they are not entirely suitable for the purpose, or to make new ones if there have been none before. In practice, these powers are in use for one product, wool, which was included in the first Schedule of the Act in 1950. At the same time, the Wool Marketing Board was set up under the British Wool Marketing Scheme, and the guarantee arrangements were given effect to under the Wool (Guaranteed Prices) Order, 1951, which was made under Section 4. This Order provides for the board to pay producers an average price which shall not be less than the guaranteed price fixed at the Annual Review. The Order now before the House will enable the 1951 prices Order to continue in operation.

11.28 p.m.

Mr. A. J. Champion: We certainly agree that this Order should be passed and that the British Wool Guaranteed Prices Orders should be continued for a further period. I am not going to enter into an argument whether the Order ought to be presented in the name of the Minister of Agriculture, but certainly I would say that it is not to his discredit that the last thing to be presented here in his name is something which continues the guaranteed prices and market stability started by the Labour Government. That continuation is all to his credit and he shall not lose it.

11.29 p.m.

Mr. Bing: I do not think the House should pass so quickly from this Order, and I agree with my hon. Friend who has just spoken in what he said about the Order and about the Minister. I hope that I am in order in saying that we all


have a great personal regard for the right hon. Gentleman, and deplore the circumstances in which he has left his office. We all regret that he will no longer be able to deal so courteously and efficiently with the various problems we have to put to the Ministry.
The House would be setting a wrong principle if it agrees to pass this Order tonight. It may be that it does not deal with matters of consequence, but we ought to safeguard the rights about affirmative Orders. If the legislature has sanctioned that such Orders shall be made these are matters for Ministerial responsibility and it is wrong, when there is a change of Minister, that we should proceed, before a new one is appointed, to agree with the views of the former Minister. We do not know who will be appointed, or whether his views will be different from those of the former Minister. He may not wish to continue the policy of the late Government. I think it would be a mistake—

Mr. Speaker: Those are all very hypothetical considerations. The House is now dealing with the Motion which is before it, and the hon. and learned Member should confine himself to that.

Mr. Bing: I was hoping so to do. The argument which I was hoping would be in order is that it does not seem to me to be very fit and proper to pass this Order tonight. It is an affirmative Order, and it is surely in order to say that there is, after all, a certain amount of time still in which this Order could be set down. Presumably hon. Members opposite can find someone to take on this thankless task, and there will be another Minister who may suffer the fate of the last. Surely that is the time to consider this Order. I submit that it is unfair to the House as a whole to have to deal with this when the Minister has gone out of office and there is nobody with Ministerial responsibility. Then again, we may have to address questions to the Minister in regard to the operation of this Order. How can we do so if there is not a Minister?

Mr. Douglas Glover: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have given your Ruling that, for the purposes of this Order, we are only dealing with the possible resignation of the Minister. Is it right and in order for the hon. and learned Gentleman to proceed as if the thing were a fact when you have already ruled that it is not?

Mr. Speaker: That apart, the position is that the Motion has been moved and placed before the House by the Parliamentary Secretary, and the House must consider the Motion on its merits. All the considerations which the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) is advancing seem to be very remote from the merits of the Motion. The Motion, on its merits, must be considered, and not what may happen in the future.

Mr. Bing: In those circumstances, I would ask your permission to move that this debate be now adjourned. I think, with great respect, that that would be a course consistent with the dignity of the House. It is quite true that this may be only a trivial matter, but I do not think that there are any other cases on record—perhaps the Joint Parliamentary Secretary can tell the House if there are—of a Motion standing in the name of a Minister who has resigned being debated as though the Minister had not resigned.

Mr. Speaker: I do not accept such a Motion.

Mr. Bing: In those circumstances, all I can do is to express the hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who always treats the House in the most courteous way, will feel that on this occasion it is not really proper to proceed with this Order in this way.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Buchan-Hepburn): rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Orders of the Day — HIGHLAND DEVELOPMENT CROFTING AREAS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith.]

11.33 p.m.

Mr. R. Brooman-White: I should perhaps begin by giving some explanation as to why I, a Clyde Valley Member, should poach on these Highland preserves. The reason is that a number of my hon. Friends and I have been considering the general problems of the distribution of industry in Scotland and it has been brought home very clearly that this Highland problem is quite apart and distinct from those of other areas. Quite different considerations are involved. I believe that there may be a case for rather more clear definition of precisely what we are trying to do, who should be responsible for doing it and how it should be done.
May I first try to define the rather strict limits of the problem with which I want to deal. "Depopulation" is a word often used in connection with the Highland problem and very naturally it arouses strong emotions. But, looking at it objectively, I think one has to go back to the phrase made famous on the wireless and ask, "What exactly do we mean by 'depopulation'?" It is always sad when villages decline, when townships decay and people move from one area to another. It is always sad, but it is often inevitable. Even in the prosperous And expanding economy of America there are decaying villages in the agricultural areas of New England and deserted "ghost" towns in the Middle West.
To some extent, these things are inevitable. Natural resources become worked out; methods of production change, social habits alter and populations move. The right population for an area is not necessarily that which has been there in the past, but the population which, in present circumstances, is that required to get the most out of the area; that is, the greatest production and the fullest advantage for the nation as a whole under modern conditions.
For some time the tide has been running away from the Highlands area. That tide may turn. Hydro-electric power has

done a lot already, and we have heard of the possibilities in the utilisation of peat, and the more distant but dramatic possibilities from the creation of nuclear power at Dounreay which may ultimately transform the whole life of the area. But I am not tonight concerned with these great possibilities for the future. I wish to deal only with the building up, and holding, of the population in this area necessary effectively to maintain and develop the occupation which for several decades, if not for several generations, must remain the mainstay of the Highlands—and that is agriculture.
What, in the opinion of the Government is the right level of population in order to get the best agricultural production out of this area—the population which is needed for the country as a whole? Are there enough people there to get it now? If not, how can the people be got back, or how can those already there be kept? Obviously there cannot be a precise figure, but if there is a rough working estimate, can we be told what it is? Without some such estimate, we do not know, so to speak, the object of the exercise. We are moving in a world of generalisations and of strong and natural emotions, rather than in a world of such facts as can be ascertained or assessed. Obviously, no such estimate can be precise, but I should have thought that the agricultural experts could give at least some rough working hypothesis that in this area, say, we need so many hundred people, and in that area so many thousands.
Having got a rough idea of how many people are required, area by area, we could then consider what special measures, if any, may be needed to keep them there; what ancillary employments are needed to underpin agriculture in order to maintain a reasonable level of population and prosperity. Here I would ask if development of afforestation is likely to prove enough to serve this purpose. In the Crofting Commission Report just published there are some interesting and encouraging facts about the contribution which afforestation can make to the problem. But if it is thought, as seems probable, that by itself is not enough, what light industries do we need in order to offer part-time or alternative employment and to help to get more


money circulating and to raise the general level of prosperity?
In the present circumstances, the distribution of industry in this area, as in all others, is a responsibility of the Board of Trade. But the Board of Trade, I submit, can see only one side of the picture. It is rightly concerned with exports, and the need for foreign trade, and the promotion of efficiency. But looked at purely from that point of view, it is hard to think of anything more inefficient than dotting industry in penny packets round the Highland glens with all the transport and managerial difficulties which that entails. If we are going to do it at all, if we are going to try to scatter such tiny industrial units through remote areas, it can only be because the industrial disadvantages are more than offset by the agricultural advantages. Now the only people who can see both sides of such a profit and loss account—the people who can see what is worth doing and what is not—are those who are responsible for the welfare of the area as a whole; that is to say the Scottish Office. Most certainly it is not the Board of Trade.
Perhaps the Royal Commission have already considered this point. If so, I hope we shall have particular attention paid by the Government to those sections of the Report that deal with it. If not, I hope the Government themselves will make the necessary inquiries and consider very seriously whether there is not a case in these particular areas for transferring the responsibility for industrial development, and in particular the development of small industries—possibly factories limited to a certain number of square feet—from the Board of Trade to the Secretary of State for Scotland.
So far I think I have conerned myself only with the general problem of strategy and responsibilities. I now move to the more difficult matter of tactics in tackling the problem. I am confident that it can be done. Indeed, both the Crofting Commission and the Secretary of State for Scotland in his speech last week referred to a small experiment which had been made at Inverasdale. That was done by the local authorities, with money and powers provided under the existing legislation, and inspired by the drive and enthusiasm of one Scottish industrialist,

Mr. Rollo. A small but successful engineering works has been started. The Crafting Commission Report states that, working in such small units, men can earn about £300 a year and continue to maintain their agricultural holdings as well. But on a small unit with four men, that means £1,200 a year circulating in an area. In a small village, that money circulating in and out of shops and so on, can make all the difference between a lively community and a decaying community. It may also go some way towards meeting the difficulties mentioned in the Crafting Commission Report with regard to the difficulties met by many crofters in getting the necessary capital for the efficient equipment and maintenance of their crofts.
The first question is to decide how much such expansion is needed, and what steps are required to encourage it. In various replies to correspondence with the Departments concerned, I have been repeatedly told that the need is for initiative, enterprise and all the rest of it from individual industrialists. But time has shown only too clearly that there are not many Rollos about. Quite naturally, if an enterprising business in an area like my own constituency wishes to expand, they build an extension to their works on the other side of the fence. They are not going trekking off to Wester Ron to do it. Without special inducements they are obviously not going to take the action necessary to meet this special case.
Now I want to make one suggestion and I put it forward tentatively to give an idea of the sort of thing which might contribute to the solution of the problem and which I believe certainly ought to be considered more carefully than has been done hitherto. If these factories are needed, could not Scottish Industrial Estates be given the powers to build them with money provided by the Development Commission, on similar lines to the arrangements instituted for the north-east coast? Could not these factories then be managed on a fee basis by existing big industrial concerns which would be better than having them under Government management? I have discussed the matter with one or two concerns and I have been told that it would be difficult, that it would obviously mean a lot of extra travel and other tiresome complications, but that if the


Government really want it and are prepared to pay for the extra effort involved, the firms see no particular reason why they should not take it on.
Could not these factories, in addition to any other work, also be given Ministry of Supply contracts, or the managing firms use them for sub-contract? The Ministry of Supply need a large quantity of small engineering products, and as much is for stock there is no hurry and the work could be done mainly in the crofting off-season and eased off when the men are employed on the farms. As I say, these things could be explored more fully than they are at present. There is no new principle involved. We give special help to the marginal farms. This is no more than an extension of the same principle. It may cost a bit. It may indeed cost a high percentage in terms of a unit, but from the point of view of the Treasury the units are so small that the total sum involved would be practically negligible. Moreover, I have already made the case that we should only consider doing such things where and when we are quite certain that the effort and expenditure of money involved is more than counterbalanced by the gain in agricultural output that the nation needs.
The questions that I want to put to the Government are these. First, we should have a clearer definition of the point that we want to reach—that is to say, the level of population in general terms which is considered desirable for the agricultural welfare of the crofting areas. Secondly, we ought to consider a redistribution of responsibilities among the Departments concerned in achieving these aims. So far as the location of industry is concerned, in the case of the Highlands I believe it should be the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland rather than of the President of the Board of Trade.
Finally, we want reconsideration of the tactical methods of getting these results, either by means such as those I have tentatively suggested, or others which may occur to the responsible authorities.
I would end by saying that under the present system we are getting nowhere. Such replies as I have had from the Departments are all concerned with proving that, under the present allocation of responsibilities and priorities, anything that one suggests is impracticable. If we

want to get results in these crofting areas I believe that we have got to change the channel of administration and responsibility, to be more clear about our objectives, more rational in our allocation of responsibilities, and more flexible and more energetic in the methods we use.

11.45 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Henderson Stewart): I think the House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Brooman-White) for introducing, even at this late hour and in a commendably brief speech, a topic of fascinating interest and very substantial importance to the Scottish economy.
It is true that the Highland problem is not quite the same as the problem for the rest of Scotland. But, I think it would be equally wrong to suggest that the Highland problem is just one problem and that one could properly say the Highlands were depressed or the Highlands were prosperous. The fact is that the Highlands themselves are made up of many quite different parts.
Inverness, for example, is a sizeable industrial town which contains at least one firm of international repute that exports highly important products to many parts of the world, and there are other parts of the Highlands that are playing an equally prominent part in the national economy.
What, I think, my hon. Friend is concerned about, is not so much the Highlands, by and large, because he knows what I have been saying is true, but with those parts of the Highlands, particularly the glens and rural, out of the way, quarters, which one might call crofting areas, which now depend, for the most part, on agriculture, fishing and forestry. He is asking if it is possible that these somewhat isolated areas could have some ancillary industries imported into them. He is asking if we have thought that out and what sort of future these areas have and what sort of population we feel is necessary and what action we should therefore take.
I cannot answer my hon. Friend when he asks questions about the sort of population that, roughly speaking, we have in mind for the Highlands, looking a few decades ahead. I do not know. I will try and find out for him, but I do not think we can easily answer that ques-


tion, because it is a very swiftly moving economy in which we are now living.
The hydro-electric schemes may revolutionise the Highlands and it would be rash to try to concoct figures as to the future population in these circumstances. Similarly, the great peat project might have a remarkable effect, and I do not think any human being could at the present time arrive at the figures which my hon. Friend desires. With his wish to see small industries brought into the Highlands, I am in complete agreement. I think, therefore, that my hon. Friend can feel easy upon that score.
The only other major question that arises from his speech is whether it would be wise, bearing in mind the need for bringing new industries into the High- lands, somewhat to change our administrative machinery. My hon. Friend says that industry and its location, by and large, is technically a matter for the Board of Trade, and he says to himself, "The Board of Trade is stationed in London. It is concerned principally with exports and imports. How can it be expected to take a keen interest in the development of small industries in isolated parts of the Highlands?" I must tell my hon. Friend that, although the Board of Trade is stationed in London, it has very admirable and active people representing it in Scotland, and that there is in Inverness a representative of the Board of Trade who is constantly moving about the area, in touch with what is happening there and looking for opportunities of development.
That representative of the Board of Trade in Scotland is in regular contact with the Scottish Departments, and he attends the Highland Panel meetings. At St. Andrew's House, where we have a joint committee almost constantly in session, composed of representatives of the various Scottish Departments, whenever it is thought necessary and useful, the Scottish representative of the Board of Trade is invited to attend. Therefore, although the Board of Trade is the body responsible for the development of industry, in fact there is close and continuous consultation between the Board and the Scottish Departments.
It may be that the Report of the Royal Commission may suggest some further devolution of administrative authority. I do not, of course, know what may be recommended, but, as my hon. Friend has said, it is a possibility. Certainly I shall undertake to bear in mind—speaking on behalf of my right hon. Friend—the case which my hon. Friend has put so cogently.
It would never do if we were to assume that the present organisation is splendid and is incapable of improvement—that it is perfect, flawless and adequate. It is by a constant flow of new ideas, such as have come from my hon. Friend, that progress may be made. I therefore wish to thank him for the stimulating suggestions he has offered, and I undertake to examine them.

Adjourned accordingly at Six Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.